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Wednesday, 9 April 2014

Product Empties #1 │ lipsticksandlevis

Hello there lovelies!

Empty product videos are among my favourites to watch in the world of beauty gurus. I think they are a great way to find out about new products or just find a bit more out about a product that you may have had your eye on for a while. The fact that the products are empty is even more brilliant because it means that the opinions on the product are going to be accurate and well developed because the whole of the product has been used. Now, I don't know about you, but I find finishing a product really satisfying and it has become a sort of competition between me and my mum! This means that I have quite and array of empty products to talk about today so I will stop waffling and get right into it! 


As you can see from the picture, I have quite a few empties ranging from skincare to body care to hair care. I will try to keep my opinions short and sweet so this post isn't the length of my arm!

This lip balm was lovely, really nourishing on the lips and surprisingly didn't smell too nasty considering it mainly contains bee's wax. It is a red colour and leaves a slight tint on the lips but nothing too much. I love that it is in a twist up tube because I don't like to stick my finger in a pot and then be left with the lip balm on my finger for me to dispose of somewhere. I loved everything about it, and I am pretty sure that I caught my boyfriend having a go with it a few times! I will definitely be repurchasing either this or one of the other lip balms in the range from Burt's Bees, once I have used up some more of my mammoth lip balm collection, and I would definitely recommend this to anyone and everyone. 

I really wanted to try out an EOS lip balm because I had seen them all over the internet and everyone seemed to own one. I was, however, a bit reluctant to spend the £5.95 on a lip balm. But after buying it and using it for a little while I could understand why everyone seemed to own one. It was lovely and nourishing on the lips and even though I have used the whole thing up, it lasted for what seemed like forever. The smell is just amazing, I could honestly sit with this stuck to my nose all day long! I would definitely consider repurchasing in the future but I currently have a Balmi which is basically a slightly more affordable version of the EOS Sphere Lip Balm. 

There isn't really much I feel that I can say about this deodorant. It's a deodorant. It did what it's supposed to, didn't make me smell. I did like the fact that it doesn't smell too much like you expect a deodorant to, I hate that smell. I probably would purchase it again, however, I usually just buy whatever is cheapest at the time I need it and what looks nice.. 

I received this hand cream in a GlossyBox and I began to use it almost straight away. It as a lovely thick texture which is ultra-moisturising, just as the tube says. I tended to only use this hand cream before bed because it was so rich and moisturising and I hate to have greasy hands while I'm trying to do things. One thing that I didn't like was the tube, I don't like the metal tubes because they tend to split after a while, meaning that product leaks out in places. I probably would not repurchase this because of the metal tube, I would rather have a plastic squeezy tube. The link above isn't the exact hand cream, it is a different scent as I cannot find the same scent as mine! 

I very rarely use face wipes, as I like to properly cleanse my face morning and night. However, sometimes if I am working either really late or really early, I will use a face wipe rather than a cleanser for a quick refresher for my skin. These face wipes are lovely and soft and have a lovely scent. I have already repurchased a second pack from use when I do not have proper time for cleansing. I would definitely recommend. 

I bought this toner because I had heard good things about the toners from Lush, that they were very gentle on the skin. As my skin is quite sensitive, I decided to give this a go. It is such a gentle toner, it basically feels like fresh water on your skin. The fact that you can spritz it onto your skin is lovely because it makes the toning process even more gentle. I would love to try some of the other toners from Lush when I am again in need of a new toner! 

Soap & Glory is one of my favourite brands, whether it be for skincare, body care or their make-up, I just love it. This happens to be one of my favourite products from Soap & Glory that I have tried and I will definitely go back to it once my current cleanser is gone. IT is very gentle on the skin, which is good for my sensitive skin and it makes the whole cleansing process feel like you have had a luxury treatment at the spa! I definitely recommend this to everyone, no matter what your skin is like!

Wilko Nail Polish Remover
I have owned this for years and years, I honestly cannot remember when I got it. I had always forgot about it and recently found it amongst my beauty stash with only about a quarter of the product left. I decided to just use it up so that I can fit a few more beauty goodies into my stash! I probably wouldn't purchase this again now that I have the Bourjois 1 second Nail Polish Remover pot (those things are genius!). I just thought that I would include it anyway as it was yet another empty product from the last few months. 

Soap & Glory Scrubs are the only scrubs that I think I will ever use. I have now tried all of them and have absolutely loved them all! This is probably my least favourite, but only because the others smell good enough to eat! I still loved this, however, and would probably repurchase. I love that as well as exfoliating your scaly legs, it contains shea butter to help moisturise along the way because lets be honest, who remembers and who can be bothered to moisturise every day? 

This was a repurchase as I had used it last year and loved it! My mum is an Avon Representative, so I will very often buy Avon products if I am not able to get to my nearest Boots or Superdrug. Their hair care is possible my favourite set of products, as everything that I have tried I have loved! I used this as a hair mask once a week to help keep my hair soft and nourished and it does it's job very well, hence my second empty pot! At £2.50 it is an absolute bargain!

This will probably be in every single empties post that I ever do, it is amazing. I used to use the regular batiste dry shampoo, but when I discovered this I was instantly converted. The hint of colour doesn't leave you with the white powdery look that the regular dry shampoo does. This is not the only one I have used, I have probably emptied at least 4 of these in the last few months. I always make sure that I have a spare in case I suddenly run out because that would be a disaster! 

Speak to you soon,


Monday, 7 April 2014

A Spring Clean: Nail Polish Collection │ lipsticksandlevis

Hello there lovelies!

I had planned this blog post for today after the weather had picked up and it was finally starting to feel like Spring, although now as I write it is raining. So much for the arrival of Spring! Anyway, I have been doing a little Spring cleaning recently around my bedroom, in general and through my wardrobe and make up stash. The main thing that I wanted to tackle was my vast amount of nail polishes.. Upon searching through my stash, I came across nail polishes that were crusty and other that I had completely forgotten that I owned. I decided that it was time to sort the nice from the nasties and throw away some of the nail polishes that had definitely seen better days. I also wanted a new way to store them, rather than just tossed into a draw out of the way. I came across a large mason style jar and thought it would be a lovely and slightly kitsch way of storing some of my current favourite nail polishes. 


(Sorry about the photo quality, I had to use the flash because its been grey outside here all day!). Storing my nail polishes like this, I think is such a unique and creative way and it looks lovely on my dressing table. I love the fact that the jar is clear glass, which means that I can easily see all of my current favourite nail polishes and make a quick and easy decision of which shade to choose for application to my digits! I love having all of these brights and pastels on display in the mason jar, it looks lovely and Spring like! As my favourite nail polishes change, I will switch the ones in the jar about and switch between these and the ones in my draw so my favourites are more easy to access! 

Speak to you soon, 

Friday, 4 April 2014

Zoeva Rose Golden Luxury Set │ lipsticksandlevis

Hello there lovelies!

Recently, I was looking for some new make-up brushes. I was particularly looking for a new foundation brush and some new eye shadow brushes. I had heard the name 'Zoeva' floating around the blogosphere and decided to have a little nosey at their website. Upon arriving at their website, I was instantly drawn to this large advert for a new limited edition Rose Golden Luxury Set (anything rose gold is a win for me). I immediately clicked and my mind was already made, these were the brushes I was going to buy! A set of 8 make-up brushes, a mixture of face and eye brushes, was just perfect for what I needed and coming with a handy leather look pouch was always a bonus. Coming from Germany, this brush set works out at £49.00 and the shipping costs are £7.50. All together, coming to £56.50, I think for an 8 piece brush set and pouch, this is very good value and I am definitely going to be purchasing some more brushes from Zoeva in the future! Now onto the stuff we really want to hear about, the brushes themselves! 



 The brush set came beautifully packaged, with each brush in an individual plastic sleeve and extra protectors on the larger brushes. The brushes then came in a loose brown pouch, which was placed inside the leather look pouch. The leather look pouch will be so handy for keeping all of my make-up brushes together when I go on holiday in June! I love the colour combination of this set, with the brown and rose gold accents and hardware. It's effortless, but looks so lovely! 

left to right: 102/silk finish. 106/powder. 110/face shape. 127/luxe sheer cheek
The silk finish brush is amazing for foundation. The bristles are packed in and really dense and makes it really easy and smooth to buff and work the foundation into the skin. Using this brush gives such a lovely silky finish to foundation (hence the name!) and helps to keep the look of foundation natural. The powder brush is the perfect size for me, not too big so I drown in a face full of bristles, and not too small that it can't evenly dust powder over my face. It is super soft and fluffy and feels so nice against your skin, cannot recommend it enough! I use the face shape brush for cream contour and for blending out contour and blush to a nice natural finish. It works perfectly for this and I'm sure I will be using it much more in the coming months with cream products, as my love for them grows! Possibly my favourite from the set, the luxe sheer cheek brush. This brush is unbelievably soft and is a perfect fit for the apples of my cheeks, perfect for applying powder blush and I even use the very edge for applying a powder highlight. I love a good multi-tasker!

left to right: 142/concealer buffer. 231/petit crease. 227/luxe soft definer. 317/wing liner.
Normally, I would blend my concealer out with my finger and leave it at that so this concealer buffer brush has completely changed the way that I apply my concealer. Towards the end of the day I used to find that the concealer around my nose would sometimes begin to look a little cakey, which nobody wants! Using the concealer buffer to work the concealer in really has made a difference and I feel it makes the concealer look like my skin rather than it is sitting ontop of skin. The size of this brush is perfect because it fits into all the little nooks and crannies that you may want to reach with concealer, like around the nose and in the corner of the eyes. I use the petit crease brush to add a bit of smoke to an eye look on the lower lash line. It is the perfect size to fit under the lower lash line and smoke it out. I had been looking for a nice sized fluffy blending brush for a while, so when the luxe soft definer came in this set, I was chuffed and it's the perfect size. It fits in the crease of the eye perfectly to blend out the edges of your eye make-up seamlessly. Finally, the wing liner brush. Now I very rarely wear liner (mainly because I'm rubbish at it), but with the purchase of this brush I decided to have a go at liner. I prefer to use a regular eyeshadow as liner and create a slightly smudged and smokey lined look. This brush make it a lot easier because of how thin it is and how small it is. Short strokes make it a lot easier to apply. Anything that makes liner easier to apply, I'm all for it! 

This collection is amazing. The quality of the brushes is amazing for the price that you pay. They are extremely easy to clean and the white bristles mean that you can see that all of the product is off and that they are completely clean. I am looking forward to getting lots of use out of these brushes and will definitely be buying some more brushes from Zoeva in the future. I would highly recommend these to anyone and if you like the look of them you can find them HERE

Speak to you soon, 

Wednesday, 2 April 2014

Hello Spring! │ lipsticksandlevis

Hello there lovelies!

I love having fresh flowers in my room, especially at this time of year. I think they just brighten the room up!
So, as the clocks went forward and the days are now beginning to get longer, I feel like it is officially spring! This makes me very excited because spring and summer are my favourite seasons and I just love all the new trends and pastel colours expecially! I didn't really have anything specific to write about today, I just really wanted to get back into blogging because I miss it and I miss having the time to do it. It's difficult to blog regularly with how busy I am with work, but I suppose the money is great because I get to buy lots more beauty and fashion bits and bobs!

I always feel a lot more positive and productive when the sun is shining outside, although I think this could be the same for most people! Speaking of being positive, I have been struggling with my anxiety when it comes to me learning to drive so a month ago I decided I needed to do something to give me a reason to be more positive about my driving lessons. So I booked my driving theory test, and thought that if I passed that it would give me a little more faith in myself. At the weekend, I went to the test centre, after finally finding it, with about 10 minutes to spare to take my theory test AND I PASSED, first time! I think it has definitely calmed me down a little bit because if I can do that then why can't I carry on learning and do well. It  has definitely made me more positive towards driving and made me more confident in myself, so overall a brilliant result!



I am feeling really positive at the moment and am really looking forward to the coming months, especially for my holiday. I'm going on holiday to Mallorca with my boyfriend. It's our first holiday together, just us and I am so excited, mainly about the weather and being able to have a natural tan. I am hoping that there will be a lot more things in the coming months for me to get excited over and lots of exciting things coming on my blog! 

Speak to you soon, 



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