Elemis Spa@Home Body Beautiful Duo

Elemis Spa@Home Body Beautiful Duo - £7.20


I wish I had featured these little products before Christmas as they make a really great stocking filler. Maybe you can stock up ready for next Christmas?

I bought this little duo at The Clothes Show Live for £7. This is a little cheaper than normal prices, when they're usually around £9 or so. Sales not included.

The two products come in a cute little drawstring bag and are a really great, reasonable size for the money. You only need a tiny bit of product on each use so you really do get your money's worth. The shower gel has a great, refreshing scent that really wakes you up in the mornings. The bath elixir is another gorgeous product that I love to use. It creates lots of lovely, relaxing bubbles but what I really love about this is the fact that when you submerge yourself in the water you can really feel the elixir working it's magic on your skin. It feels silky smooth and what's even better is that there's no work on your part, you simply dip yourself in the water and let it wash over you.

Have you tried this duo?

MUA Luxe Glitter Palette in Burlesque

MUA Luxe Glitter Palette in Burlesque - £4





I picked this up recently as I thought it would make a nice New Year's Eve related post for you all. I thought it might be a good product to use to really add a bit of wow-factor to your NYE parties/plans but I have to admit I'm SO disappointed by this product. It was definitely a big fat fail.

Usually I'm a huge fan of MUA and this palette really caught my eye because it's so sparkly and pretty. I love the copper/gold shades of the Burlesque palette but I cannot get on with the formula. The palette is for eyes/lips and face and the best way I can describe this is like a glitter topcoat nail polish. The formula is very gloopy and the sparkles are very sporadic on application, not good for using on your eyes at all. You need to really dig a brush in there to get a good amount of product. Obviously it works best on a base eyeshadow and it's easy to blend around the eye lid.

Unfortunately the product transfers straight onto the upper lid as soon as you blink and it's really horrible and sticky. The glitter isn't subtle at all so I personally wouldn't go for the full on, glitter all over look as it's just too much. It might be nice to add a few sparkles just above the lashes or maybe in the corners of your eyes but I can't be doing with all of that nonsense. I also can't personally imagine anyone wearing this on their lips/face. It would just look odd.

The product is extremely difficult to remove as well. My trusty old Bioderma even had quite a job trying to remove it. It just seemed to spread the sparkles around my entire face. This is just a palette that I can't get on with. The formula of it is horrible and I would have much preferred a sparkly powder shadow or something similar to a Barry M Dazzle Dust. I certainly wouldn't recommend purchasing this entire palette for your NYE's party look as it would be a waste of money. It's a shame but sometimes there does seem to be the odd product from MUA that I can't get on with, oh well, you live and learn!

A Christmassy week in photos

Christmas presses / Christmas Eve dinner! / Mum's Christmas tree / Christmas Day table / Vince playing with his new present / Neals Yard goodies / Daisy by Marc Jacobs / Coin purse / More goodies / Daisy / Goodies from work / Soup mugs / Candles! / Nail polishes / Lovely Diary and Notebook / New phone! / No7 goodies! / Mum's dinner

Follow me on Instagram - @cherryp13

Is it just me or has this week completely flown by? Not fair!

On Monday I had work and it seemed to be the slowest day ever! I was off from Tuesday and spent most of the day cleaning the house from top to bottom. It took me hours and hours. I also attempted my traditional mince pies, which failed massively. I'm not really sure what went wrong as I've made them perfectly for the past two years but this time they just went horribly wrong. Don't think I'm going to bother in future!

On Christmas day we had to wake up pretty early as Vince had work at 7.30am. We got up around 6am and opened up all of our lovely presents. Vince got me some great goodies, including a new iPhone 5C! I'm a lucky girl! After that I got myself dressed and ready to head to my mum's. My sister, her boyfriend and my niece and nephew came round in the morning and it was great watching them open their presents, although Oscar is only three months so he couldn't really open them himself. Daisy got thoroughly spoilt with lots of lovely gifts, her favourite was definitely a Robofish! They must be the latest craze or something…

I haven't lived at my mums for more than a year and a half now so unsurprisingly by the end of the day I was sneezing non-stop, probably due to the dog. So by the end of the day I felt pretty awful and just wanted to get home to bed. I did have a nice day though and absolutely stuffed my face with food.

On Boxing Day Vince and I went to his parents for lunch, which was lovely. I do enjoy food the most about this time of year. Well, I enjoy food the most about any time of year really. Talking of food… Vince's family went to my family's house on Friday night for dinner and my mum made ridiculous amounts of food! It was all so good and it turned out to be a really nice night. Something we should definitely do more often. I'm looking forward to New Year's Eve as we'll be going to Vince's parents again this year. It's become a bit of a tradition now and his mum makes loads of yummy food! On Thursday I'll be back at work - I can't believe how fast it is coming around. Next weekend I'm thinking of going on a bit of a shopping trip as I have a couple of vouchers to spend, including a £50 for Primark! Eek!

There's not many posts to catch up on this week as I had a bit of a quiet one blogging wise but make sure you check out my review of W7's 'In The Buff' Palette HERE. Great Naked3 palette dupe!

W7 'In The Buff' Natural Nudes Eye Colour Palette

W7 'In The Buff' Natural Nudes Eye Colour Palette - £5.49












Fancy a Naked 3 palette dupe for under £10. This is it! Not that I'm able to compare this palette to my own, as I don't own it or any of the Naked palettes for that matter, but this is a neutral/nude palette so how much more similar does it need to be?

I have to say this palette is rather brilliant. For £5.49 you're getting 12 neutral shades, all of which are really well pigmented, have great staying power, and blend wonderfully together. The palette comes in a tin, which unfortunately on arrival, was broken. The hinge had come out but I completely blame it on the postman as it had obviously broken when he pushed it through the letter box and it dropped onto the wooden floor. Not to worry, I can still use the tin without the hinge.

The shades go right from a creamy base shade through to glitzy copper, browns, dark brown and finally a black. There's so much to choose from! The palette comes with a little double-ended applicator brush. One end is one of those spongey applicators and the other is a proper brush, quite similar to one from the Real Techniques eyeshadow brush pack, but a little stiffer. I really like this end of the applicator as it makes applying the shadow really easy. There is a little fall out on application and the powder does crumble a little when you put the brush in it but it's nothing major.

As I mentioned, the shades are quite well pigmented and I like the copper/brown one in particular. For the price of the palette I don't think there's really any major flaws and it is well worth the money in my opinion. I'm so glad I discovered it as it is definitely going to become one of my most used products. I'd definitely recommend it!

A pre-Christmas week in photos

Sparkly nails / Derren Brown tickets arrived! / Naked palette dupe? / Sparkly eyeshadow! / Delicious lunch at Bella Italia / Heisenberg mug!

Follow me on Instagram - @cherryp13

I can't believe how close it is to Christmas already. This week has flown by and this weekend has just disappeared in flash. I'm only in work tomorrow and then I have nine days off, hurrah!

On Monday myself, Vince and our two friends from college decided to take part in pub quiz at our local. We had no idea it would be SO busy. There were zero tables and we ended up sitting upstairs for the first half of the quiz so we couldn't hear anything! We eventually moved to standing on the stairs just to hear the questions, it was so frustrating! Unfortunately we didn't win. There's a surprise, but it was fun anyway!

I've had a pretty busy week this week actually. On Wednesday I popped to my Nan and Grandad's for dinner as I haven't seen them in ages and I wanted to drop their Christmas presents off as I won't see them before Christmas now. Dinner was a delicious casserole type dish with mash and green beans followed by Bakewell Tart. Yum!

On Thursday after work I went out for a Thai meal with my colleagues. It was really yummy and gave me another chance to gobble up some tempura. I'm loving it lately. I want to try and make my own but I think I'll wait until the New Year. I also had a good old Thai Green Curry, which was delicious, followed by mango ice cream!

I've done quite well with eating out this week! Vince and I went to Southampton yesterday for a little day trip and ended up eating lunch at Bella Italia, which again, was delicious. Not sure why we decided to go to Southampton really but we haven't been back since leaving Uni and thought we'd have a bit of a day out. We had some Christmas shopping to do but it was SO busy and the weather was awful. I managed to pick up a few bits and pieces but am still going to have to pop out on Christmas Eve to get more.

As I mentioned I'm working tomorrow and am then off. I'm planning on popping to town on Tuesday and making some mince pies! It's become a bit of a tradition for me to make mince pies and last year I made the pastry myself too so I must be getting better. This year I'm going to attempt traditional mince pies as well as pies with apple and orange zest and pies with a little tiny hint of cranberry. We'll see how they turn out!

Are you baking anything for Christmas this year? Did you catch all of this week's posts?

I featured Kiko Cosmetic's new Longlasting Stick Eyeshadow set. It's the perfect Christmas gift!

I also popped up an outfit post that's been sat in my drafts for quite some time. Check out my New Look cardigan and peter-pan collar top.

Stuck for a last minute Christmas gift for him? Check out my Gift Guide.

It's been a little while coming but I eventually got around to posting about my Clothes Show Live haul.

And last but by no means least, I reviewed the very sparkly Rimmel Space Dust in 'Moon Walking'.


Just quickly before I go - check out my little interview on Bonjour Blogger!

Rimmel London Space Dust in Moon Walking

Rimmel London Space Dust in #006 Moon Walking - £3.99


I just couldn't walk past Rimmel's new line of Space Dust polishes without having a little look and picking one up. I opted for 'Moon Walking', which is a glitzy purple shade and it's just gorgeous.

For £3.99 this is a real bargain and I've had quite a few compliments on it already. It took two coats to get the above finished look and it dries extremely quickly. What I like most about the polish is the extra wide applicator brush, it literally covers the entire nail, making my life much easier!

The polish is ridiculously glittery and really catches the light well. You know a polish is good when it passes the washing up test without chipping and this one did with flying colours. It's got really great staying power with very, very minimal chips after three or four days. It's the perfect polish for a special occasion or night out or like me, you can just use it as an every day polish. I'd definitely recommend it and I'm thinking about checking out some of the other shades available.

Have you tried this yet?

The Clothes Show Live Haul

This year I won tickets to The Clothes Show Live. I've been to the show before but it was quite a few years ago so I was looking forward to going again and doing lots of shopping!

Now I didn't take any photos while I was there so this post just includes pics of what goodies I picked up on the day as well as a bit of a review of the day. I didn't arrive at the show until lunch time so it was already pretty busy and when I say busy I really mean it. It gets really ridiculous, people are literally falling over each other and bashing each other with the stupid big bags that all the beauty stands hand out that actually only contain teeny tiny goody bags. The bags are simply for advertising purposes. You can see how big they are above and you can see what I mean by the tiny Barry M cosmetic bag that was inside one of mine.

The beauty section of the show has got to be my absolute favourite. There's lots of familiar brands with stands at the show as well as some not so familiar ones. It's good to have a browse and find out more about those you don't know much about but it's also good to visit the likes of Models Own and Barry M to purchase the goody bags, which are £10 each. The goody bags are really worth the money as you get four or five full size polishes as well as lots of other little bits including lip balms, eye pencils, mirrors etc. If you were to spend £10 on Barry M or Models Own polishes in the shop you'd only get two or three.

I was thrilled to spot a Ciate nail polish stand selling the popular advent calendars. The calendars retail for £42 but they were being sold for £10 at the show. I picked one up for myself and my sister as they're such a bargain and it meant I was able to open nine days worth of doors in one go! I'll be dedicating an entire post to the calendar in the New Year once all of the doors are opened and I've tested all the polishes!

I wasn't as keen on the clothing section of the show. It's sort of set out like market stalls and the clothes all look really tacky and offputting from the outsides. They're definitely not your typical highstreet brands, more like the sorts of things you'd see in Camden market really and a lot of them were quite expensive too. You would have to spend a really, really long time rummaging around to find something you liked.

The actual 'fashion show' itself was particularly awful. I would barely even call it a fashion show to be honest, it's one of those ones where all of the 'models' dance, which is something I absolutely hate. I find it so cringeworthy. Some of the outfits were wearable but most of them were ridiculous.

The models were obviously encouraged to interact with the ground, which was pretty embarrasing because the theatre was half empty so there was very little response from the crowd. It was all just so tacky and cringeworthy that I was laughing pretty much throughout.

I'm glad I went to the Clothes Show because I managed to pick up some great goodies and I had a fun day out with my friend but I don't think I would pay for a ticket. The clothes available are just not to my tastes and I would not voluntarily sit through another fashion show, if you can even call it that. I think there should be some kind of beauty show instead as that would suit me much better! It's a shame I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought!