Looking Back & Looking Forward - September/October

October has landed along with an Indian Summer (that's right, its now October which means its officially an Indian Summer!) I'm loving the last minute summer, except for the dilemma of having no clothes to wear seeings as we haven't had a summer yet!

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This month I've been loving...

Beauty...

Lauren's Way fake tan. I finally got around to using this last night! I bought it ages ago but have been putting off using it to be honest because fake tan scares me! For the first time ever in my fake tanning life I've come out streak free! I have got a few patches where I've missed bits, the lighting in my bedroom is awful so its not very good to see what you're doing! This tan is instant though so I can just top these up today.

Fashion...

Coloured jeans. Not just the jeans that I'm wearing here just coloured jeans in general. I only own this pair so I need to buy a few more pairs. I'm particularly lusting after a maroon pair.

Food...

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Limited Edition Triple Chocolate Mars Bar. These are simply amazing. Enough said.

Blog posts...

Mrs Red post sharing with us how she made some huge changes to her blog. I still haven't got around to trying this out!
Leanne's easy peasy nail design - I'm actually sporting this look right now!
Claire Louise's very impressive nail art - I'm not even going to attempt this one, I could not do it justice.
Emily's sparkly nail design - on my list to do. That list is huge.
The family tree shown on Sammy's Tuesday Treats - I must attempt this myself, it looks amazing!

The products that I've used in full this month...

Rimmel 25 Hour Foundation. I loved this when I first bought it, you can read my review here. It is a  good foundation. It lasted absolutely ages and I just get bored of using the same foundation for so long, I'm trying to be good and not start other products until I've finished the one I'm using, I think I started to resent this foundation because I wanted to try others but couldn't until it was finished!

The Body Shop Peppermint Intensive Foot Rescue. This may be good for people who don't have feet as bad as mine. It certainly didn't rescue my feet but my feet are as tough as a crocodile so it would take a lot to rescue them. My quest for the miracle product still continues.

Looking back...
I've had a good month. There have been a few problems within my group of friends which has riled a few people including me. I'm not letting it get to me.
I've met more bloggers this month - yay! I absolutely love meeting bloggers! They are all so nice.
I've been doing well with my Weight Watchers considering how badly I stick to the diet! My weekly weigh in this week left me 1/2lb away from loosing half a stone. I had a sneaky weigh in this morning and have hit half a stone :)

Looking forward to...
1.10.10 (tonight) Swansea with my ladies :) All our boyfriends are away in Butlins on a stag do. We decided to go away ourselves! We're catching the train to Swansea and staying over night. Cannot wait!
8.10.10 Cadbury World. Spencer and I bought this through Groupon. We are staying in the Park Inn on the Saturday night and then going to Cadbury World on the Sunday. The Sunday is our engagement anniversary (2 years) so we thought it would be nice to do it that weekend.
12.10.10 The Cardiff blogger meet.
28.10.10 not necessarily anything to look forward to but I thought I'd put this in. I've been in my job for 9 years this day! That makes me feel so old!
29.10.10 its my cousin's 30th Birthday so I've been told to keep this Saturday free. We're probably just going out local, I think she wants to do fancy dress. I may finally get to dress up as a geek, been wanting to do that for so long! I think we're going to surprise her by asking the pub to bring out a cake and putting balloons & banners up if they'll let us.

I didn't realise how exciting my month ahead was until I typed this up! Have you got anything exciting planned?

My first proper MAC Experience

Hi guys, how are you all? Have you been enjoying the bank holiday weekend? Today is my Sunday, so what better to do on a pretend Sunday than blog? Nothing!

Whilst in Reading I decided to brave the MAC counter. I've been wanting to get colour matched for a while now but have always been put off by bitchy sales assistants/the shop being too busy/unhelpful sales assistants. I saw that the MAC shop in The Oracle was really quiet so decided to give it a go. The girl who served me was lovely. She asked me to remove all my make-up and did a full face of foundation for me after matching the colour to my skin. She started with moisturiser, then primer, then applied the foundation with a brush. She talked me through everything and recommended certain products. She was in now way pushing me to buy MAC products and even recommended some Body Shop products.

After applying the foundation she asked if I was happy with it but in no way pressurised me to buy it. She was obviously happy that I did decided to buy it but didn't put any pressure on me to buy that or any additional products. This has made me a lot more likely to visit that store again.

I was matched to a NW15 and bought the Studio Fix foundation. I also paid a little extra for the pump, altogether it cost me £22 and something pence or around that.

The foundation has good lasting power and quite full coverage. It applies nicely and doesn't leave my skin oily which a lot of foundations do.

Blended into my hand.

I've always been a high street make-up girl not really seeing the point in paying for expensive make-up brands. Since starting blogging and seeing so many people rave about MAC I had to try it out to see what the fuss is all about, I hate to admit it, but I may now have caught the MAC bug!

Do you like to pay more for high end or do you prefer to stick to high street?

REVIEW: Rimmel Lasting Finish 25 Hour Foundation

I know that loads of bloggers have already written reviews on this product, but I love it so much that I wanted to share!

I don't buy high end foundations as I refuse to pay a lot of money for make up, I generally use makes such as Rimmel so bear in mind that the comparison is only to 'drugstore' brands.

This has to be the best foundation I have ever used! It goes on really well, covers really well and lasts a long, long time! My cat Kitty scrammed me the other day so I decided to take full advantage of that to give you guys an example of the coverage :

before

after one thin layer, my skin on my hands is quite dry and wrinkly which is the only reason it hasn't' blended very well

It has a pump which I prefer to squeezable bottles, the pump doesn't pump too much foundation out in one go either which I know a lot of pumps do.

This is definitely my new 9-5 foundation! Usually by the end of the working day I don't have a lot of make up left on my face, with this foundation I still get shiny but the coverage is still very much there. My other foundations have always gone blotchy from my shiny face but not this one, it really does hold its own! I can't vouch for whether it does hold its own for 25 hours as stated but it certainly lasts a long time!

The only flaw for me was the limited choice in colours. In my local Boots they only had three shades and they didn't have any testsers! Apparently they'd all been stolen, the joys of living in Pontypool hey! Luckily the colour I picked is pretty much spot on.

This is currently on offer for £4.99 in Boots which is a £2 saving off the normal price. I think that this is an amazing price for the quality of the foundation, I may get myself another bottle while it is still on offer. I can't see myself switching from this foundation any time in the near future, I can't think of any reason to switch as it does exactly what I want a foundation to do.

Leanne

xoxo