Natural Collection Festival Basics

Keeping packing to a minimum is hard enough but when you're packing for a festival, you really need to be ruthless when it comes to necessities. Personally some deodorant and a packet of wet wipes just won't cut it for me, I need something to at least make me feel a bit more alive and basic make-up can really help.

I recently featured Natural Collection and recommended it as a great brand for anyone who is a bit of a beginner when it comes to beauty. Even if you're not a beginner, the range is fab, affordable and I believe cruelty free too. The products are also brill little festival basics too and it doesn't matter if you misplace them in your tent as they're super cheap so you can simply replace them when you get home.




I absolutely swear by Natural Collection mascara. It's the only brand of mascara I find that doesn't clump, makes my lashes look nice and long and doesn't have stupidly thick brushes so application is really easy. I usually use the LashLength but have recently been trying the Water Guard as a waterproof alternative and have found it works really well, perfect in fact for unpredictable festival weather.




In your festival make-up bag you could also pop a concealer ready for those late nights and hiding dark circles. Not a necessity as such but something to perk you up a bit and make you feel a bit more like yourself as it can be hard living out of a back pack and being caked in mud. The Natural Collection concealers are particularly handy as they come in fab lipstick type applicators, protecting them from all the heavy drinks cans you stuff in your bag alongside them.

The lip balms and nail polish are definitely not essential at all but they are great for creating a fun festival look. The polish will last a good couple of days while you're at the festival and a slick of lipbalm every few hours will keep lips hydrated as well as looking good thanks to the hint of colour.

What are your festival basics? Have you tried taking any Natural Collection products along to a festival? Let me know in the comments.

Before you go - voting in the Bloggers Blog Awards is now open and it would be great if you could vote for me for Best Beauty Blog! You can VOTE HERE

*This post contains PR samples

Manicure Monday: Kylie Jenner Sinful Colors Trend Matters Collection

I've never heard of the brand Sinful Colors before. I have of course heard of Kylie Jenner, although I can't say I'm a fan as such. I've been watching the whole lip kit debacle from afar but I'm not a fan of lip products so I wasn't really interested in trying these myself, however nail polish is definitely my bag so thought I'd see how I got on.

I spotted a display of the Trend Matters Collection from Sinful Colors in among all the sickly sweet Youtuber products in Superdrug so decided to pick up two shades. I went for Haute Koffee, a dark coffee/purple shade with a hint of shimmer and the bold pink Miss Klaws. I thought these in particular looked quite pretty and would work well together as well as individually and I was not wrong.



I wasn't a huge fan of the brush on these polishes. These days I expect most brushes to be quite wide/fanned as we all know this makes applying the nail polish so much easier, but brush problems aside, the polish did apply really nicely and dried super speedily. I was interested to see that these dried matte but then I realised the name of the range Trend Matters and had a little chuckle to myself at old clever cloggs Kylie's little play on words.

The colours themselves are really pretty and I only needed two layers of polish for each nail so they weren't too thin and not too thick either.




At £3 each these are on the cheaper side of most high street nail polishes but they lasted a good four days before there was any really bad chipping. On the fourth day I did start the day with very minimal chipping but then I went swimming and this seemed to strip the polish a lot. I didn't use a top coat so this might of helped but I'm more than happy with it lasting four days, I would say that's just as good as any other high street brand.

They are really reasonable and a nice cheaper alternative to some other high street polishes. I just wish the brushes were a little wider!

Have you tried the Kylie Jenner for Sinful Colors Trend Matters collection? Let me know in the comments.

Before you go - voting in the Bloggers Blog Awards is now open and it would be great if you could vote for me for Best Beauty Blog! You can VOTE HERE

H&M Home blog photo prop haul

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about my New Look blog photo prop haul and I have say it went down rather well. It seems I'm not alone in seeing homeware products as blog photo props instead so when I was in London recently I just had to pop into H&M Home.

I was very good and quite restrained, just picking up three little bits in order to give my blog photos a bit of a makeover as I have to admit the copper props were getting a bit samey in every pic. I got myself a very pretty silver pinapple, which only when I got it home did I realise it was a candle, a geometric print cushion cover and a small porcelain plate with some really cute detailing around the edge. You can see the first set of photos I took with the new props here and I have to say I'm really pleased. I like the monochrome look and the plate in particular is fab for popping nail polishes on.




I'm starting to build up a bit of a collection of little plates, they're just perfect props for blog photos and I've seen lots of other bloggers using them too. I know that TK Maxx and Sainsburys have lots of cute ones so I may need to pick up some more. I love the detailing on the edge of this one, very pretty with the blank, white and gold colour pattern.

I also find that tea towels and cushion covers make fab backgrounds too, in particular monochrome ones with geometric patterns like this that I picked up. It looks nice just poking out of a photo and takes away the harshness of the fake wooden floor background. I definitely need to pick up more cushion covers, H&M had loads of different colours and patterns...I feel like this could be my new obsession.

So what are your thoughts on this mini H&M Home haul? What bits have you picked up recently for use as blog photo props? Let me know in the comments.