Sneak peak at what I did today...

Eee! I will do a proper post tomorrow. Shattered!

How to: Clean your makeup brushes!

Hi guys. A couple of you mentioned that you'd like to see how I actually wash my makeup brushes after my last post. I thought I'd give you a quick low down on what I do to keep them lovely and clean.

I've got my dirty eyeshadow brush here. Obviously you need to work over the sink.

I use Johnson's Baby Shampoo or any other baby shampoo. You can get Tesco Value baby shampoo for something like 12p which is also good. The hairs on this particular brush are animal hair, as opposed to man made, synthetic hair - therefore it is much better to use a soap with as few ingredients as possible because you don't want your bristles to dry up.

Wet your brush under a running tap. Make sure you keep the brush tilted down at all times. You don't want to get water in the ferrule of the brush as this, over time, will degrade the glue used to hold the bristles securely and the whole brush head may even come away from the handle. (The ferrule is the metal part that keeps the bristles attached to the handle of the brush.)

Once your bristles are wet, apply a small amount of baby shampoo to the palm of your hand.

Use your hand as a 'palette' and massage the bristles back and forth as if you're mixing paint on your hand. No need to be too vigorous, just light swirls and back and forth will do just fine. You will start to see the makeup disperse from the brush onto your hand.

Rinse the brush, again with the bristles facing downward so that minimal water touches the ferrule.

You may want to repeat the process again to make sure all traces of makeup are cleaned off the bristles. I normally soap and rinse twice for each brush.

After, squeeze the bristles gently in a clean towel or clean tissue to get rid of the excess water.

It is important that you leave your brushes to dry lying flat, again to stop water seeping into the ferrule and causing damage in the long term. I like to sit mine on the windowsil on a clean paper tissue. Gently make sure that the bristles are shaped nicely (none sticking out!) so that they dry into a good shape. Depending on the size of the brush it will take 1 to 12 hours for them to dry naturally. I prefer not to hair dry or speed up the process as it tends to separate the bristles and you get a brush that looks disheveled and most likely will damage the bristles over time.

Cleeeean!

The same process applies to bigger face brushes. This is a Kabuki brush that I use for powdering the face.

Wet the bristles with the brush facing down to avoid water seeping in.

Apply a small amount of shampoo and massage into the bristles as before.

Rinse and repeat as many times as it needs for the water to run clear. I washed three times on this one as the bristles are very dense. Make sure that all traces of shampoo are washed out of the bristles!

I like to leave my kabuki to dry on a paper tissue again. I also roll a piece up to act as a stand so that the handle of the brush is higher than the bristles to avoid water getting in...

...or I sometimes just balance it on it's own bristles. Depending on the brush, you may not want to do this as it could distort how the bristles lie when dry, but mine seems to dry fine like this. I would normally wash this at night, leave it on the sil to dry while I sleep and it is normally dry by the time I need to apply my makeup in the morning.

I hope this helped. If you have any questions let me know and I will do my best to get back to you.

Happy brush cleansing!!

See you soon with a haul!

x

Squeaky Clean!

Ahhh, finally! I've been slacking on cleaning my makeup brushes (gross, yes!) and I hadn't cleaned them in weeks so they were getting pretty clogged up.

There's no better feeling than clean makeup brushes...

Before:

After: 

Phew, all shampooed and clean. I WILL endeavour to do this every week from now on, because I really should!

How often do you all clean your brushes? HONESTLY!?!

See you soon! 

x

O.O.T.D with my yellow satchel!

Hello my lovely regular readers, and hello to all of my new followers. Thank you for joining my blog, I hope you enjoy it and leave the odd comment now and then :)

Outfit of the day today again for you. I nipped off out to town AGAIN to try and finish my birthday present shopping - with a little more luck this time! I also got to test out my new satchel and I can safely say I loooove it. Well, I love the look of it, I just wish it needed a lot less faffing about to open and close it!

Furry faux leather biker jacket from Topshop.

Faded, baggy skull tshirt from Topshop.

Black skinny jeans from Topshop. Think these are the Leigh jeans, and for comfort I would give them 10/10, but they started off black and faded terribly and haven't really washed particularly well. If you don't mind the faded look, I would recommend them but keep in mind they won't stay black for long!

Boots are the Dr Martens Triumph 1914 with ribbon laces. I bought mine from Schuh but you can get them loads of places and in a number of different colours now. Comfiest pair of boots I own. Just a pain to get on and off. Good for days when you're going shopping and really, really shouldn't be buying for yourself because once you've got these bad boys on, you honestly can't be bothered with the hassle of getting them off and on again in a changing room...and my motto No try-No buy!

My new bag is by The Cambridge Satchel Company and is the Classic Satchel in Yellow 14"

It is MUCH more practical than the 11" version, let me tell you!

Sunglasses for driving are my Ray Ban Tortoiseshell Wayfarers.

And may I just express my happiness at how LONG MY HAIR IS GETTINGGGG! Yay! So excited to get it to how it was before I chopped it all off :) Still a long way to go, but I'm happy with how fast it's growing!

That's all for now. Hope you have a lovely bank holiday weekend. See you soon!

x

How to: Long and voluminous lashes!

So, a lovely little old lady asked me whether my eyelashes were real today.

I love sharing my tips on creating longer looking lashes so thought I'd show you what they looked like today (after a ten hour shift at work, so forgive my lack of concealer and red eyes) and tell you what products I used.

I first curled my lashes with an eyelash curler. The one I used is by Shu Uemura and I highly recommend it.

I then apply a generous layer of Maybelline Great Lash Waterproof mascara in Very Black (Available HERE). I use this to keep my lashes curled, otherwise within a couple of minutes they droop back down and become poker straight again. This is the only mascara I've found that keeps my lashes curled all day.

After waiting a minute or two for this coat to dry I used Bourjois Coupe De Theatre (Available HERE) which has micro fibres that attach to your lashes to give ultimate length.

Again, after a minute or two I then applied a generous coat of Benefit Bad Gal Lash in Black (Available HERE) 

And that's it!

I love getting unexpected compliments on my makeup, especially when I don't think I've put that much effort in!

Hope this helps some of you who are looking for new mascaras, I really recommend all three together.

Squiggly!

Went to the park with the other half yesterday for a bike ride and to feed the Squirrels :)

Here we are messing about on each other's bikes.

The Cambridge Satchel Company

Me today:

Why?

LOOK WHAT ARRIVED!!!

Eeeeee! My Cambridge Satchel came, finally!

I ordered from the official website on the 1st April and it was delivered today, 3rd May. The website make it known that orders can take up to 30 days as they are made to order. Bare this in mind if you are buying for a gift or for a special occasion. I have ordered twice now from this website and both have taken just over 30 days from ordering to being delivered to my door.

So worth the wait though.

Look how beautiful she is...

This is the 14" Yellow Classic Satchel.

This is the size comparison between the 11" Classic Satchel in black, and the 14" Classic Satchel in yellow.

The 11 inch satchel is very small and is suitable only for essentials such as a small purse, your phone, a lippy and keys. The 14 inch satchel is much more roomy and can fit A4 paper, all your essentials and still has room for other bits and bobs.

Can't wait to use it! Might have to take it to work tomorrow, yay!

Zara shoe haul!

Just ordered some UGHHHMAAAZING shoes from Zara.

Shouldn't have, but sold some stuff on ebay recently so that's excuse enough for me!

One pair, not so practical.

 

And one pair that I'm more likely to be able to walk in.

 

Hurray!!!