Best of Beauty 2018

Hey guys! Today I wanted to go through the makeup products I discovered last year that I loved! Some are new to last year and some were just discoveries for me. I hope you enjoy.

Eyeshadow palettes:
in 2018, I discovered loads of new eyeshadow palettes that I fell in love with, and to be honest most of them are by revolution! I loved the Soph extra spice as well as Tammi's and Carmi's palettes and I've used them the most this year! I also loved my Obsession palette that I customised and wore that I lot this year too

Brow products: 
In September I received the Bang Beauty eyebrow pomade in my glossy box and fell in love with it! I really love the formula of this product and thought it definitely deserved a mention!
I also discovered the soap and glory archery brow fibre gel! I love this little product and it makes my brows look so much fuller than they are!

Mascara:
My favourite mascara that I tried in 2018 was the Loreal Unlimited mascara! I love this mascara, it's really lengthening and volumising.

Concealer:
The best concealer I tried last year was the Revolution fast base concealer! I really like this concealer and I think it's so good considering how cheap it is!

Blush, bronzer and highlight:
I discovered a few new blushes last year! Firstly the Nyx away we glow liquid illuminiser in rose quartz I love as a shimmery liquid blush! Its so gorgeous and it quickly became my favourite blush!
For a more every day look, I really love the essence matt touch blush in berry me up! I bought this because I forgot to bring a blush for graduation and it's such a perfect everyday blush shade.

I also fell in love with the revolution Soph highlighter palette! The shades are so gorgeous and not chunky at all but give an amazing glow! I also really liked the revolution Imogenation highlight to the moon palette which I love both the bronzers/ contour shades and the highlighters too!
Finally, I also loved the Nyx bright idea illuminating stick in sandy glow for a glowing bronze.

Lip products:
There weren't as many lip products that I discovered and fell absolutely in love with compared to last year but I did discover some that I really liked and that stood out for me!
Firstly my fave has to be the Karl Lagerfeld and model co lip pencil in Rosewood. I can't even explain my love for this lip pencil it's so creamy and such a gorgeous colour that looks amazing on it's own or with some gloss on top.
Leading on to my next product, the Nyx cosmic metals lip cream in crystalized metal, a metallic lip cream which looks really nice on top of that lip pencil. I wore those two products a lot last year for meals or going out!
I also really loved the Rimmel stay matte liquid lipstick in heartbeat such a flattering bright pink and I honestly love it for when I'm feeling a bit bolder
Finally, I also fell in love with the Huda beauty liquid lipstick formula, so light it's insane! I have mine in girlfriend which is a very easy everyday nude colour, nothing too fancy and the smells a bit overpowering but it's the formula that really sold me!

I hope you enjoyed this post! What were your fave makeup items last year?
Lots of love,
Eleanor

2018 book round up

Hey guys! Hope you are doing well. It's honestly been so long since I wrote a blog post and it feels slightly strange being back and writing one! Like I've said in my previous posts, I am really busy with my masters at the moment and I am finding it hard to blog much to be honest so I am not making any blog promises for 2019 only that I try and blog when I feel I can!
Anyway, I always love doing my yearly book round ups they're my favourite posts to write every year so I wanted to write this! I have linked all the books I have reviewed over last year too.
in 2018 I managed to read 22 books, which is a bit low for me personally so I am going to try my best to beat that in 2019!

My 2018 books:

1) The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
2) Hold Back The Stars by Katie Khan
3) Ready Player one by Earnest Cline
4) The life-changing magic of not giving a fuck by Sarah Knight
5) One of us is lying by Karen M. Mcmanus
6) The Million Dollar Blog by Natasha Courtenay-Smith
7) The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
8) Get Your Shit Together by Sarah Knight
9) The Girl Before by JP Delaney
10) Release by Patrick Ness
11) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon
12) How to be Parisian wherever you are by Anne Berest et al
13) Turtles all the way down by John Green
14) Awake under the night sky by Vanya Sharma
15) The Trouble with goats and sheep by Joanna Cannon
16) Fools and Mortals by Bernard Cornwell
17) Origin by Dan Brown
18) When God was a rabbit by Sarah Winman
19) Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
20) Little beach street bakery by Jenny Colgan
21) Summer at little beach street bakery by Jenny Colgan
22) Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman

I found it really hard to come up with my favourite three books for this year so I just thought I'd talk about the books I liked the most! Firstly, I loved Ready Player One, it was one of those books I read and thought "Why haven't I read this before?" I really enjoyed it and would really recommend it if you're late to the party too. I also really enjoyed the Night Circus I thought that was a really good book and would really recommend it if you like gorgeous descriptions and a new world to fall into (I did a full review of this book.)
Another book I really liked was One of Us Is Lying I found it really intriguing and really enjoyed reading it. I also really loved Curious Incident which again I am really late in reading for the first time! Finally, I also loved Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine which I thought was a really important book!

To be fair, I really enjoyed nearly all the books I read this year! One book I want to mention is Sharp Objects, which was a really interesting book and probably the most stand out book that I've read this year and it really stuck with me! It was creepy and made me feel a bit ill reading it!

Another book I wanted to talk about is the Million Dollar blog. If you are a blogger I would really recommend reading this I found it so interesting and really helpful!

As usual a couple of books I wasn't the biggest fan of. Firstly, Hold back the stars I have some reservations for. Again I have a full review of that but the ending really irked me!
Secondly, The Girl Before wasn't really my cup of tea if I am being honest. It had a pretty good story line but also a few fifty shades of grey esque bits which I'm not a big fan of!

And that is my round up! I would recommend nearly all of the books I read last year!
Did you read any of those books? Do you have any suggestions for me for 2019?
Lots of love,
Eleanor

Paperless Post review

Hey guys! Hope you are doing well!
I was recently contacted by Paperless post (https://www.paperlesspost.com/), an online card sending service if I would have a go on their site so of course I said yes because I was intrigued about it!

Paperless post is an online service whereby you can send adorable internet cards to your friends; They have a range of cards for all occasions and have professional looking invites too. They are the most gorgeous cards ever! They're so pretty and have designers including Kate Spade New York, Oscar de la Renta, Jonathan Adler and Rifle Paper co.

I have been sending some cards to all of my loved ones and they have honestly been so impressed with them too. I don't have any big occasions coming up but there is a super cute section called "just because" with some really pretty cards that can be sent at any time with an adorable message! And my mum especially has been loving me sending her cute cards.

I really like this because you're 100% helping towards sustainability with less paper and honestly, quality is not missed at all, in fact, I think the cards are nicer than any you see in shops! You also have full control over the card including the background design, fonts, messages and even the stamps too which is pretty cool. There is also space to put in your own photos too!

The website itself is really aesthetically pleasing and easy to get around too, and the cards send so fast so there's no waiting around or anything, they're sent and received really easily and you can send a beautiful card in a matter of seconds.

I honestly think this website would be really useful for a lot of people, especially for people wanting to make a little environmental change and for people who have accessibility problems who maybe find it difficult to actually buy a card and send it! As well if you're the type of person who forgets birthdays and anniversaries this would come in useful as you can send it on the day!

Overall I really like this website and I think it's a really cool way to send round invitations, birthday cards or just cute little just because cards to cheer someone up quickly!

Lots of love,
Eleanor x

Loreal Unlimited mascara review

Hey guys! Today I wanted to talk about a mascara from Loreal. This mascara has been talked about quite a lot and I thought I would share some of my own thoughts about this.

Firstly, this mascara has a really bulky packaging which I'm not the biggest fan of but it doesn't annoy me too much! It's kind of like a large bulb which makes it kind of hard to travel with if you have a thin makeup case! A big feature of this mascara is it has a bendy wand, so you can move the wand sideways which could be pretty useful for some people but I personally don't really use this feature. Either way, this product looks pretty unique and interesting and definitely stands out to other drugstore mascaras.

I really love the formula of this mascara! It's really lengthening and volumising without being clumpy or spidery at all. It doesn't feel heavy at all on the eyelashes either. The only thing I wish was that this mascara would be more curling. I find that although it gives length and volume it doesn't lift the lashes up which for me is a problem as my lashes need that bit of curl from a mascara!

One thing I have seen people saying about this mascara is that it's a benefit bad gal bang dupe and I can seen why people are saying this because the volume this mascara gives is amazing! After a few coats my eyelashes look really good which as ever my very straight eyelashes need. I honestly actually prefer this formula to the bad gal bang one, I think it's a lot less wet and messy, and it doesn't transfer as badly as bad gal bang does! Also, this mascara has amazing length and separation too, something really missing from bad gal bang which was really clumpy, unlimited isn't clumpy at all!
(Pst, If you want to read my full review of the bad gal bang mascara you can here.)  I think that if you like bad gal bang you will really like the unlimited mascara even more and it's cheaper!

I think this mascara has a really nice plastic brush which I really like too and you don't need too many coats of it to cover all of your lashes and make them look really long and volumized! This mascara is around £12 I think, so quite pricey for a drugstore mascara but I really think that it is worth it since it's so good! Loreal mascaras are really good in my opinion anyway and I think this is another good mascara from them! There's honestly nothing negative I have to say (I know that's unusual for me) for this mascara and I just think it's a really good option!

If you're looking for a drugstore mascara I would personally recommend this.
Lot of love,
Eleanor x

Revolution fast base concealer review

Hey guys! Hope you are doing well! Today I wanted to do a review on the Revolution fast base concealer. Everyone has been talking about the conceal and define (which I am still yet to try because they never have my shade in!) but I've not seen that many people talk about this one so I thought I would give some of my thoughts!

This concealer is similar to the Maybelline age rewind concealer with a twisty end and the product coming out on a little sponge on the top which I personally quite like! It's really simple and effective even if I did have to spend ages trying to get the product out to begin with, and it does mess up the lid...

I really like the formula of this product. It is a medium consistency I would say, it's not too thin or too thick which is good, and doesn't look cakey under the eyes at all and it feels really lightweight! Also, this concealer doesn't crease at all which is such a big plus! It does a really good job of brightening too! (Im in the shade c3 btw).
It blends in really well but I would say to use it with a beauty sponge because I find that you can really see the brush marks with this concealer. I find this product to be really hydrating too and doesn't cling to any dry patches. I personally only need one twist for both eyes so I think it will last me a long time.

I have to say the concealer does wear on me after a while and by the end of the day I am noticing that I am looking quite tired and my eye bags are poking a bit through the concealer!

Also one strange thing is that I really don't like the smell of this concealer? I can't even put my finger on it but when I put it on in a morning I have to hold my nose a bit because I really don't like it! It goes away immediately and I can't smell it during the day or anything but the other day when I was really hungover I honestly couldn't face putting the product on my face because it smelled so bad so I had to use my trusty erase paste by benefit.

Another thing I noticed about this product is that it it's not very good to do cut creases with. When I tried to do one the other day it looked a bit strange on my eyelid! Not as good as my Revlon colour stay concealer looks anyway.

Despite the smell, I really like this product actually and I would really recommend this! It's a lovely lightweight medium buildable concealer that brightens, doesn't crease and doesn't cling to dry patches and for £5 that is pretty good!
Lots of love,
Eleanor

Glossybox October 2018 review

Hey guys! I hope you are doing well. Obviously, it has been a while (again) since I have uploaded a blog post! I am sorry but at the same time I have just started a masters and I am still getting used to everything and working out how blogging fits into everything for me so I would imagine my blog posts are going to be a bit scarce for a while, as I get back into the swing of things!

Today I thought I would do my review of the October glossybox (2018) and go through the products we received this month! I was overall very impressed by what we got! The theme of this month was Halloween and there were two boxes you could get, the trick or the treat box! I actually received the treat box this month and this is what I got!

Firstly, we received one of the Illamasqua anitmatter lipsticks, we got ours in the shade "nebula" which is a bright pink/purple lipstick! I really like the formula of this lipstick, its a pretty bright colour but if you pair it with a nude lipliner it can calm it down a bit and make it more wearable. This retails for £20.

This box also contained the MUA luxe strobe and glow highlighter in the shade pink lustre. I think the trick box contained the bronzer version of this product! I honestly love this highlighter! It's such a pretty colour and it's really pigmented too. it has a Powder and a cream highlight and yeah, not much to say but I really love it plus it's only £5.

Another thing we received in the box is the sleek i-divine palette in "oh so special." This palette is pretty cute, it has a perfect "day" to "night" ratio with the colours and they're really pigmented. There is a lot of kickback with this palette but it's such a nice little palette and I really love the colours.

The fourth makeup product we received was the Luna by Luna loose translucent setting powder. I had never heard of this brand before but I love a good translucent powder so I was excited to try this. The packaging isn't my favourite not going to lie, to me it feels quite cheap and the product leaks out a little too. I do like the product though and it doesn't cling to dry patches or anything and it is really brightening!

Finally, we received the this works in transit camera close up primer, mask and moisturiser. This was the only thing which was a deluxe sample size. I have been using this as a primer and I do like it. It's quite heavily scented and is white so you have to rub it in quite a lot! The full size product is £35 which to be honest I wouldn't pay not going to lie because i don't think it makes that much of a difference to my face or makes it look that amazing really. But I will still continue to use up the sample.

And that's everything we received this month! This was my second every glossybox and I was really impressed again and I'm really excited to see what we get next month!
Lots of love,
Eleanor x

Amsterdam 2018

Hey guys! Hope you are doing well! I am back from a bit of a blogging hiatus! Basically, after my last blog post, I went to Amsterdam for a week and then two days after I got back and went back to Uni to start my masters so I have been busy settling into my new flat! I thought I would talk about what I did in Amsterdam, just in case you are going soon and what some ideas!

Amsterdam is definitely one of the places to be at the moment, I feel like everyone is jetting off there! I had wanted to go for ages but I wasn't sure if I would have the chance, but me and my boyfriend fell in lucky and he managed to get some time off so we could go. We booked a jet 2 package deal and stayed for 4 nights, but our flight in was really early and our flight out was late so it felt like we got a full 5 days there too.

Monday:
Like I said, our flight was super early and we got to Leeds/Bradford airport at half 4 for our plane at 6:45. Because Amsterdam is an hour ahead, it was pretty early by the time we arrived! We caught our tram and the train to our hotel, (XO hotels park west) which luckily we were able to go to our room straight away at about half 10. I was pretty tired so I closed my eyes for a bit while we decided where to go for lunch. We bought a 4-day tram ticket which was only £22 euros which was so good considering we used the tram everywhere every day! We weren't 100% sure what to do on our first day so we decided we might as well just head for the red light district and headed for that museum. Which was definitely an experience! Here's a lovely picture of me there (you're welcome).

Afterwards, we sort of just walked around all around there and where the palace is and stuff and just got a feel for the city! I didn't take too many pics because I didn't bring my camera with me but I really enjoyed my first day there just exploring really! We did, however, stop for (apparently) hollands best chips which were, to be fair, pretty yummy!

After hours of walking, we made our way back to the hotel and genuinely fell asleep so early we were exhausted!

Tuesday:
On Tuesday we decided to visit Vondelpark which was really nice! We had a pretty lazy morning and then headed here in the afternoon with a little picnic and just walked around the park which is really big! It's really busy and full of people on bikes but I would recommend going there! It's really pretty too!

We then had a walk around where all of the museums are, the Rijksmuseum and Van Gough. We didn't go in any yet but we just had an explore of that park of Amsterdam which was really nice! We also took some pictures next to the famous I Amsterdam sign of course!

We later went back to the hotel and then went back out for tea in the evening! We went for burgers from Thrill Burgers which were pretty good.

Wednesday:

On Wednesday we went for pancakes for breakfast! We headed to Mook Pancakes which were absolutely amazing and if you're in Amsterdam I would seriously check them out! Then we headed to the Van Gough museum which I was really looking forward too (Luke less so). I really enjoyed it though! Next time I want to go to the Rijkes instead!

After spending even more time wandering around that area we headed back home to grab our coats for the ice bar! I really enjoyed the ice bar experience it was really fun! You pay about £18 euros but you get three drinks included and coats and gloves! You get one drink in the warm area and two in the actual ice bar. The drinks are pretty limited to beer and shots in the cold part but the shots are actually really delicious and I really enjoyed it!

Thursday:
When we woke up Thursday we tried really hard to get Anne Frank House tickets and we luckily managed! If you are going to Amsterdam and want to go you have to book them so far in advance! They let out a limited number on the day (all online btw you can only buy tickets on their website) but they go quite fast! We didn't realise this but luckily after trying for a few days, we managed to get them on our last full day! I really enjoyed the experience and I thought it was really moving and I would 100% recommend going.

For tea we went to Cannibale Royale right in the red light district which was amazing! The food there was so good and I would also recommend this place to eat it was delicious!

Firday:
On our last day in Amsterdam, we had no idea what to do! We had been really lucky with weather all week untill Friday when it rained pretty badly! We decided to go back to our favourite places and we actually went into the prostitution museum which was actually really interesting! It's a pretty good museum and I would recommend it if you're interested in that sort of thing! We also, of course, went back for some more lovely chips where we visited on Monday!

And that was basically our city break to Amsterdam! I hope you enjoyed this post! Have you been to any of these places?
Lots of love,
Eleanor x