Una Brennan Tea Flower Deep Clean Pore Purifying Clay Mask

I've always been one to try out face masks but I've never quite managed to keep up a regular routine, I'll manage for a couple of weeks, then go a few weeks without using them either through lack of time of an evening or just being too tired. 

My Mum actually gave me the Una Brennan Tea Flower Deep Clean Pore Purifying Clay Mask which she received at Christmas as part of her office's Secret Santa but didn't think it was for her. When you squeeze it out, it's a light greyish green colour and has a pretty inoffensive smell. I've taken a leaf out of Vivianna Does Makeup's book and I've started applying face masks with a flat foundation brush as opposed to fingers. 

One thing I like about this mask is that there is no tingling and my face isn't red after using it as I have experienced with a couple of other masks (nothing serious, just looks like I'm quite flushed). My favourite thing about this mask is how quickly it dries - when I'm knackered but have just about enough energy to put a mask on this just helps so much as I think it dries in about half the time of some other clay masks I own. 

The most important thing though - does it work? I believe so, it definitely agrees with my skin. My skin as of late has been very good though I get the occasional breakout, for example when I came back from holiday I had a few spots due to the soft water and I live in a hard water area, after putting the mask on by the following morning I was seeing improvements. Occasionally it will bring spots to the surface, but often I find it just clears them up straight away. 

The Tea Flower Deep Clean Pore Purifying Clay Mask retails at £8.99 which I think is an absolute steal and I would thoroughly recommend trying it. I would like to try more Una Brennan products, however seeing as I'm going away soon it isn't worth me buying anything new at the moment.

You can buy Una Brennan products from Boots online or in store. 

Kate x

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Benefit They're Real Mascara Review

Benefit They're Real Mascara is one of those products that was a hit ever since it launched. I even remember getting the Benefit newsletter announcing its release and took it with a pinch of salt. 

I have always heard positive things about this mascara, though admittedly I've never actively googled reviews of it to read as I've never been that tempted by it. However, when finding out a mini version would be available with Elle's May edition for £4.00 I wasn't going to pass up the chance to try it.

I've not used a plastic applicator for quite some time, so it took me a little while to get used to it. I must say I was very impressed with the length this mascara gave me, it looks natural and not at all spidery. By the end of my first day of wearing I could see that it had run slightly which disappointed me a little but it wasn't the end of the world.

It was only when I went to work with this on that I was truly disappointed with this product, not even 3 hours at work and I looked like I'd been crying my eyes out it had run so significantly. It left me conscious for the rest of the day. It gets quite warm in the office so I assume this was the cause of it so now this mascara is reserved solely for weekends. 

Considering that in just over a month I'll be going travelling around Asia and then moving on to Australia I don't think this will be a product that will make my 'minimal' make up bag - if it runs in a warm office, I dread to think what I'll look like in hot and humid countries.

I can definitely see why people love this mascara because I do like how my eyelashes look with this on, but it's not enough for me to put up with the running I'm afraid and considering a full size tube of this costs more than my current favourite, it wouldn't be logical for me to purchase this. 

Has anybody else had problems with running with this mascara?

Kate x

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Travelling Plans #2

The following post was written in April and has been sitting in my drafts. I thought it still relevant to post.

Following on from my last post a couple of months ago outlining plans to go travelling, things have advanced and changed. 

The most exciting bit of news I have is that we've booked some flights! Danny and I fly out to Thailand on the evening of 6th July. We have a brief stop off in Delhi and then straight onto Bangkok. Now we've got a date we're looking forward to the other things we need to do before leaving, namely vaccinations and visas. We had our Australian visas granted on the 6th May in record speed - we were granted them within 1-2 hours of applying. We had been expecting to hear back about a week later.

In my last post I said we were going to get a multistop flight ticket, well that plan has gone out the window completely, we're now going to book flights as they come - it gives us more freedom and more money to play with while we're out there, especially since when in Australia we'll be earning money which can then be saved. 

On the 13th April we went to London to book our flights and for me to try on rucksacks - I decided to get it while I was there as there was very little difference in price between in store and online. If you saw someone walking around Covent Garden with the biggest carrier bag ever - that was me. 

Hotel wise we've booked 3 nights in an upmarket hotel for a little bit of comfort before venturing into hostels. We're booked in to stay at a hotel called the Shanghai Mansion and it looks absolutely lovely and has good reviews on TripAdvisor (I have been consulting this as though it's the bible for reviews on hotels and reading forums).

For our stop in Asia the rough plan is to start off in Bangkok for a couple of days, then move onto Cambodia (Siem Reap and Phnom Penh), from there onto Vietnam travelling up the coast, across into Laos to dot about there and back into Thailand to work our way down from Chiang Mai down to the Thai Islands (hopefully in time for a Full Moon Party), last stop being Malaysia before hopping on a flight to Melbourne!

Kate x

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Rimmel Apocalips in Big Bang

When I first caught drift of the buzz of Rimmel Apocalips I was very intrigued, and then when people started tweeting and instagramming photos of their new purchases I decided I had to try them, especially after reading a review of a higher end similar product.

I decided to go for the boldest colours, and I am a fan of a red lip (although I don't sport it enough) and so the shade Big Bang jumped into my basket.

The colour payoff for this is amazing, and even once the gloss has faded there is still vibrant red on your lips, I wore this one Saturday and I think I only needed to touch it up once in the afternoon. 

This product is long lasting, but I will say that after extended time it is a little prone to bleeding (nothing serious, you can only spot it when you're actually standing up close and personal infront of a mirror) so for that I would assume the best thing to do is to wear lip liner before hand - but I'm too lazy for this.

Like with all bold lip products, you most definitely need to use a mirror to apply this or you're in big trouble. A little can go a long way, so build the colour up and see how you get on.

This can be a little drying, so try a thin layer of lip balm before hand. I'm very lazy when it comes to using lip scrubs so I'm quite fortunate that this doesn't highlight dry patches particularly.

I would most certainly recommend this shade, I also have Apocaliptic which I haven't worn quite as much so I'll do another post on that at some point. After seeing some other posts I like the look of some of the mid pinks, but I don't think, personally, I'll be opting for the nude shade.

What do you think of Apocalips - love/hate/indifferent?

Kate x

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