A little bit of beauty on a Friday: Topshop Highlighter review

Hello ☆

Happy Friday! I find it is definitely the best day of the week as you cant beat that feeling of knowing that the weekend is here. During the week i rushed into the city to pick up some art supplies for my two boys. However, being a shopaholic, i couldn't resist popping into Topshop for a quick peek at their new spring/ summer range. So many lovely outfits to swoon over! I need to win the lottery as soon as possible. Anyway, i didn't buy any clothes but instead picked up a couple of their makeup products. I brought a couple of their pastel nail polishes for £5 each, which i will review later on but today i want to talk about their highlighter which i picked up for £10.  This product has been on the top of my wish list since before Christmas but i never got around to buying it for whatever reason. Knowing me it was probably the £10 price tag (yes, I'm tight). 

The Topshop highlighter comes in a black sturdy box with cute kitsch stars, just like all their beauty products, which i totally love! The product itself is encased in a white, round compact which features a tight clasp which prevents any nasty spillage in your handbag. The only negative thing i can say is that the compact doesn't come with a mirror which can be a little inconvenient. 

The highlighter comes in shades Crescent Moon and Sunbeam. The only one they had in stock at the time was sunbeam, so i settled with that. I wasn't upset by this, i actually love the shade but i think it will be better for summer when i have a little more tan on my face. Sunbeam is a beautiful gold highlighter with yellow undertones. It contains a small amount of glitter which leaves a glowy shimmer on your face. The product comes in the form of a powder product, but it does not feel powdery or chalky at all. It feels quite smooth and soft, and applies smoothly and easily on the skin. Only a little powder is needed for that glowy look so I foresee this product lasting me a very long time which justifies me paying the £10 for it. Also I found it to be easily applied with both a brush as well as with fingers, making it easy if I want to touch up during the day and do not have a brush on hand to do the job. 

Over all, I absolutely love this product and the golden shimmer it leaves on my face. I wore it to a little gathering the other day and so many people complimented me on how healthy it made me look. I definitely recommend giving this one a try. Have you tried this product or do you use any other highlighters that you think i should try?

Hope you have a great weekend.
Gem xx

A splash of Colour on a Monday.

Hello

Monday's are normally the day i post an outfit of the day, but unfortunately i have fallen ill and do not feel happy about putting my face on my blog today. So, i have decided to post a quick polyvore mood board showing a few accessories i have been lusting over lately.

I find Mondays are definitely the best day of the week to wear colour as its traditionally known as a miserable day. Wearing colour will cheer you up and that will reflect onto people around you. I'm not telling you to go head to toe in colour but by wearing a few colour pop accessories like the ones above will certainly help your mood.

Sorry again for the short post and i hope you are having a lovely day. 

Gem xx

Happy Chinese new year

Topshop snake dress / Oasis deep v dress, $110 / Wallis green top / Slip on flat / Vivienne Westwood bag, $175 / Snake jewelry, $24 / Accessorize cord bracelet / Azalea Chinese Paper and Bamboo Parasol, $21 / Decorations / chinese new year, year of the snake - set of 10 cards

Begin to love mondays..

Monday sweater £38 Lazy Oaf/ Boyfriend jeans £24.99 New Look/ Wedge Trainers £34.99 New Look/  Yellow t-shirt £230 Avenue 32/ Rings £10 Topshop/ Handbag £30 River Island/ Snood £16 Topshop 

Topshop wishlist

1. Parka £60 / 2. Mirror bird tee £15.00 / 3. Skater skirt £38.00 / 4. Tartan shirt £38.00 / 5. Stripe band back dress £26.00 / 6. Polka dot tea dress £38.00 / 7. Smock tunic £38.00 / 8. Nail colours £5.00 /

Hello ♥

Since becoming a blogger, all i seem to think about is clothes. I seem to be spending and spending to keep up with the latest trends. I have had to stop now and instead only write out wish lists of pieces i would like to add to my wardrobe. Topshop is definitely my downfall when i ever i walk past the store. There are so many things i wanted for a while now. Above are a small selection of pieces which are on the top of my list to buy. 

Number one is the classic parka coat. This is a lovely thick plain one for £60. I have noticed everything seems to be studded or camouflaged at the moment and I feel this one will stay on trend for a lot longer.
Number two is the very gorgeous mirror bird t shirt. You just cant beat a classic white t shirt and i also cant resist anything with swallows. The t-shirt costs a very pleasing £15. 

Number three is something which i have been searching everywhere for, but just haven't found the right one that suits me. I have tried this one in store and loved it. The length is perfect and will go well with the bird tee tucked in. The price is a little higher than other skirts i have found at £38. 

Number four is bang on trend for this season. Tartan is everywhere and this shirt will be perfect to pair with some leggings/ disco pants thanks to its longer length. It costs £38 but have found similar shirts in Primark, H&M and New Look. 

Numbers five, six and seven are three of the most gorgeous skater dresses i have found. Skater dresses are just my type of dress. The fitting of them are so generous and so flattering, and i think they're perfect with a biker jacket and chelsea boots. The burgundy one is definitely my favourite due to its 1940's vintage look. 

Finally number 8 is my three favourite colours of nail varnish in the Topshop range. The beige and turquoise will look gorgeous for spring time, and the mermaid nails for an evening out. 

I could easily have everything at the moment in store. Spring/ summer collections are the best collections, so many cute prints, bold colours , and so many beautiful dresses.

What is on your wish lists for the spring/ summer? 

Gem x

A Weekend of Les Mis and a few outfits ★

Hello my lovely readers ♥

I was going to start posting 'what I'm wearing today'  posts but this weekend i have been rather busy with the family to sit down at my computer. So I'm am just going to compile my pictures into one big post.

Friday 

Friday nights are spent with friends at our local family friendly pub. We like to chat about the week and let the kids run around with their friends. Everyone normally dresses very casual here but as i have spent all week in leggings, wellies and baggy tops i wanted to make some effort.

I wore a white dress with a peter pan collar from my favourite shop Primark. It has a horse and woodland print with a purple belt. For some reason i find myself buying a lot of clothing items that have collars, i just love them.  This dress was in the summer 2012 sale for £5. Bargain.

Saturday 

I have a little more to say about Saturday. Today was the day i finally got to see Les Miserables at the cinema. If you follow me on Twitter or are friends with me on facebook you'll know that i am a massive Les Miserables geek. I have all the cast recordings, seen every film made and been to the queens theatre twice. My review of the film? I can't say i was happy with it entirely. I'm sorry to say Russell Crowe ruined it for me. He is not a singer bless him. When he started to sing one of my fav songs 'Stars' i was so disappointed. Also as much as i was impressed with Amanda Seyfield's singing in Mamma Mia, i felt see struggled with the high notes playing Cosette. Hugh Jackman was amazing though and I admit i cried when Anne Hathaway performed 'I dreamed a dream'. So emotional and so perfect. My favourite girl was of course Samantha barks. She is the one and only Epoinine. She really should have got more credit for her role. Have you seen the film yet? Let me know your thoughts on it or if you are also a fellow Les Miserables geek. 

As the film is a massive three hours long i decided to dress comfy casual. I wore my favourite Atticus jumper from Play.com, (I'm sorry i cannot remember how much this cost), with my grey skinny jeans from Primark. 

Sunday

Today we woke up with the intention of having a very lazy Sunday. It has been a very busy week for us with work, extreme house cleaning, school and job hunting. However while making breakfast we realised we had no food in the cupboards so a quick shopping trip was needed. Yesterday before the cinema, i sneakily ran in to Topshop to see what was left on the sale rails. I found this dress which i have actually been after for a while now. It cost me £20 reduced from £38. Even though it may be a little to dressy for food shopping i still cant help showing off my new purchases. 

It is a deep red skater dress with capped sleeves. The material is textured and thick, ideal for the winter. Also the dress is stretchy which i love even though the dress is unfortunately a size to big due to being the only one left. I teamed it with my favourite Primark bow belt, black wooly tights and my Chelsea boots also Primark.

Let me know your thoughts on the Les miserables film.
Thanks for reading.
Gem x

What I brought in the boxing day sales.

 

Hello!

 

Just a not so little boxing day sale haul for you today.  I am not the biggest fan of sale shopping, it irritates me when i have to pick clothes up off the floor and search through tightly packed rails. Also they never have anything in my size, even when they have the sections of sizes. People bug me too when the sales are on. I'm not a fan of being rammed and my stress levels don't cope. This year i decided to wait a week after boxing day to visit the shops as well as shopping on line. Even though I hit the sales late I'm still rather impressed with the lovely items i have brought.

 

First up are my on line purchases:

 

New look

 

 

I have already shown you guys this dress on a previous post. It cost me £8.00 reduced from £14.00. Its a silky feel blue bird print tea dress from New Look. This has to be one of my favourite purchases as I can't resist a nice tea dress.

Missguided

I love love missguided. I visited their website in search of a sparkly new years dress but as usual i was distracted by their sales page and came away with this lovely lightening bolt jumper. It cost me £9.99 reduced from £19.99. They are still available if you want to grab yourself one.

 

 

On Saturday i decided to visit the shops to see what was left over. Most shops like Office, Zara and Debenhams were too busy for me to handle but i did visit the sales lines of Topshop and Primark. Here is what i brought:

 

Topshop

 

 

 Aztec velvet skater dress, was £39.00 reduced to £20 / Burgundy skinny fit jeans £45 reduced to £20 / Ear Cuffs, was £7.50 reduced to £3.75.



Primark

 

Burgundy wool dress £20 reduced to £10 / Blue daisy print tea dress £14.00 reduced to £5 / Ear cuff £1.00 / winter boots £5

I also visited Boots to see if there were any of their Christmas gift sets left. Unsurprisingly the shelves were pretty bare. I did how ever find a Soap and Glory Shower travel bag hiding underneath a self. Very excited when i found it. Originally it cost £18.00 but it was reduced to £9.00. Inside contains six travel size products which are "Girligo" Body moisturising mist, Hand food, "the righteous butter" body moisturiser, "clean on me" shower gel, "calm one calm all" bath bubbles, and finally "scrub of your life" smoothing body butter.  

 

 

Did you grab any sale bargains this year? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Gem x

New years eve day outfit

Happy new years eve! Just thought I'll post another outfit of the day for you. This is what i wore on a shopping trip on new years eve. Excuse the creases, the material does not like to stay straight.

Dress River Island (four years old)/  Necklace Primark (current stock)/ Ear cuff Topshop/

Having a little house party tonight, i will post my new years eve party dress for you. What are your plans or if you live in a future timezone what did you get up to on new years?

Gem x

 

 

 

Barratts Christmas Giveaway.

Today, I was excited to receive another email telling me about an exciting giveaway. This time it was from Barrats shoes asking me if I was interested in entering their giveaway that they were holding.

The Prize is in two parts and worth £100.

The first part of a £30 giveaway is over on Kel Loves blog. <go and say hi.

The second part is worth £70 and is open to bloggers only. To enter this giveaway, you have to create an outfit post for a festive occasion. The outfits should be designed to fit one of a range of Christmas situations which can be either:

*A walk in a winter wonderland
* Christmas party
* A shopping Outfit
*Christmas day outfit
* Or anything else festive you can think of.

The clothing can come from any website you choose, but the shoes must come from Barratts. Also, don't forget Barratts have their own range or bags and accessories, so you can also use these in your outfits!

Since i have already created a party outfit, I thought i would do a long day of Christmas shopping outfit:

Christmas sweater, £63 / Black skirt, £48 / Studded handbag, £25 / River Island / Winter photography Snow photography Woodland forest Minimalism..., £25 / Tuxedo Black Artificial Christmas Tree For Sale - Treetopia / Faux Pony Leather Collar, £28 / christmas, £13 / New Arrivals | Hot Topic, £12 / Christmas Tree Pattern Socks

For my Long Shopping Day outfit I wanted to make sure the outfit would be completely comfortable, shoes being the most important ones. I tried wearing heels once on a long shopping trip and had to be helped home by my poor friend. Never again! 

I chose a pair of simple black Creepers that cost a bargain price of £25.00. Feel these look amazing and are so cosy on your feet.

The rest of the outfit comes from the wonderful topshop. I found a stunning Christmas holly jumper for £50, and paired it with a cute leather skirt. I have also added a ox blood collar which costs £22.00 to add a little more style and detail.  I chose a cross body bag which is ideal to free up those hands so you can carry more shopping bags! Finally, I had to add a cute Christmas pudding beanie I found in River Island. It costs £15.99 and found it to be such a cute little find.

Hope you like the outfit.
Gem

My favourite colour: Ox Blood

Oxblood!

ox blood by brittanyhinrichs featuring cap sleeve dresses

It's the name of any reddish-brown colour or just the fashion industry's fancy name for burgundy. I find it to be a great colour for autumn and winter and i would say it's the new 'Black' this season. Here's a few of my favourite oxblood picks for the holiday season:

From Asos:



 

Jumper £39     Pencil skirt £30









Boots £40        Dress £85 

From Topshop:

 

 

 

 

 



Coat £70   Dress £26



 



Bowling bag £38 Fur collar £25

From Urban outfitters:

 

 



Blazer £65 Jeans £50

My Oxblood nails from Barry M. 

(please excuse the messiness)

 

Magnetic Burgundy is a deep metallic Red shade that has a slight brown undertone. It is a very pretty shade and

I found the polish to apply well and dry quickly. This is the first time i have used this product and have only just found out that the nail varnish is literally magnetic. I feel really silly. Apparently the cap has a magnet inside which you glide over your nails to create a diagonal straight line pattern. So will try this and replace the pictures to show you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

These Barry M nail varnish are defiantly the best ones Ive tried yet. They are around £4.99 and are available from superdrug and boots.

Have you tried them? What do you think?

 

Gem xx