Beauty on a Budget - The best cheap makeup

As much I love high-end expensive lovely luxury sweet smelling products I do not have endless amounts of money and quite often I find myself looking for a cheaper dupe! But lower-priced products does not mean cheap and cheerful, there are cheaper brands that i love using just as much as my MAC and Lancome that can be equally good in quality.

If you've seen any of my hauls before you know that I lurrrvvvve this brand! All their products are under £5 mostly £1 or £2 and I would really recommend them! I'm not going to lie a few of their products are a little bit iffy like the felt liner pen but when it comes to eyeshadow, blush and nail polishes I can not get enough! You can buy their eyeshadows individually or if you want to save a bit more money you can buy their palettes, my favourite is the Heaven and Earth palette which is a really good substitute for the Urban Decay Naked palette as it is made up of neutrals. Overall if your looking for something cheap but reasonably good quality try MUA!
Available in: Superdrug, Website

I'm not sure if they sell this in any shops in the UK but they have a website where you can buy it from and the majority of their products are £1.50 or £3.75 from the studio line. So far I have found all of their products have been great quality, in particular their all over colour stick and long wear lip liner. But the best thing about ELF is their studio brushes, if your looking for a (much) cheaper make of brushes than MAC or Sigma, Elf's studio line brushes are almost equally as good in my opinion for a fraction of the price. If you buy a lot the shipping can add up but if you save up what you want to buy in a wish list worth over £30 then buy it the shipping is free, or do what i do and just wait until they have a sale or special offer on ;)
Available in: website

Natural Collection is a brand by Boots that could be compared to the likes of Body Shop, it's all natural ingredients and has the same ethical ethos as them but every product is under £3.00! I love body shop but i just find its too expensive for me as I'm desperately trying to save money, Natural Collection has been a great solution as the products are good quality and affordable. If your worried about ingredients in make-up I'd strongly suggest this brand especially their lipsticks and blushers :)
Available in: Boots

Mavala
Now this technically isn't a make-up brand it's nail polishes but I thought I would include it as they are just such good value for money. The prices tend to vary but on beauty bay you can get them for £3.50 with free delivery!! These are mini nail varnishes but they use them in all my local salons as they just do not dry out which I cannot say for more expensive brands like Nails Inc. The nail polish is long lasting and the range of colours rivals that of OPI so you will definitely find the shade for you!
Available in: Beauty Bay, Debenhams, John Lewis

So there are four brands that are low priced, but high quality. I hope this helps anyone who is looking for a cheaper alternative as they are on a budget or even if your just starting to get into makeup and are looking for affordable products to start a collection with! I love using all these brands and I've started using all of them in my everyday makeup recently so hopefully you will love them as much as I do!

speak soon - little becca xx

Beauty Products Haul!

So as promised here is my beauty products haul, I have quite a lot that I have collected over the past month so some if it I may have already shown on here but I'll go into a bit more detail this time :)

Nails:
MUA Love Hearts - 22 U R FAB £2.00
So this I have featured in a couple of posts but I really do love this nail varnish, the quality is ridiculously good for £2.00 and it lasted on my nails all weak without chipping! The formula isn't too thin so you could get away with only one coat but I do two just because I like the colour to be strong.




MUA Nail Varnish - Shade 05 £1.00
Again this is a really good nail varnish for such a good price! I am definitely pleasantly surprised by MUA products and I am really loving them which is why there is quite a few in this haul. The colour is perfect for spring as it's a pastel mint colour which is just everywhere at the moment. I would definitely recommend this!





MaxFactor Max Effect Mini Nail Polish - 45  Fantasy Fire £2.99 in Superdrug (usually £3.99)
So this nail varnish has been raved about for a while now so I decided to buy it and although I do love the colour I think you probably need to find a similar colour base coat to go underneath as I found I needed about four coats to build it up but I still wasn't completely sure. One good thing is that it's quite easy to take off for a glitter nail varnish as I find most glitter nail varnishes take forever to take off but this came off quite easily.

Lips:
Mac Frost Lipstick - Angel £13.50
I've never had a frost lipstick before so I thought I would try one and I do quite like them, this one is very creamy and almost feels like a lip butter. The colour is a really good pinky nude that is perfect for daytime. The only downside is that it doesn't stay on the lip for as long as matte lipsticks which are my favourite.







Revlon Colorburst Lipstick - 075 Peach £7.99
This is a really gorgeous coral colour that isn't too bright so is very wearable, again it's a very creamy lipstick so the colour doesn't last that long but I just fell in love with the packaging of this product I just loved it! I'm not sure if they are still selling this anymore as I think they've replaced it with the lip butters.





MUA Love Hearts  Lip Balm - Kiss Me £2.00
This colour may look a little bit daunting at first but remember it's a lip balm not a lipstick so the actual colour is a lot more muted than this! On the lips it comes out a pinky red colour and it is actually quite conditioning for the lips so is great for keeping in your handbag for when your lips are dry!





Eyes:
MUA Pearl Mono Eyeshadow - Shade 24 £1.00
The colour of this eyeshadow really caught my eye as something different, it's somewhere between a purple and a brown with a slight shimmer and I picked this up for my Lana Del Rey makeup look but I actually really liked it and I've been using it as a crease colour as once it's blended in it's really subtle and I think would work really well as the base colour for a smokey eye.

Gosh Effect Powder - Meringue £2.99 (in the Gosh Clearance)
I can't find the original price for this product but I found it in the Gosh Clearance Stand in Superdrug and actually bought it for my mum as she wanted a new pink eyeshadow. However when I actually tried it I decided to keep it for myself as I loved it, first of all I will say take the little shaker bit off and chuck it in the bin, I spent two weeks trying to use it and couldn't get any product. What you want to do is use a small amount and make sure you tap your brush off before you use it, this really does give an effect which is very shimmery but without being glittery which I like :)

Soap & Glory Thick & Fast Super Volume Mascara £10.00
I'm a little bit disappointed in this mascara if I'm honest, I don't know whether it's just I'm not using it right but I find that it doesn't make my eyelashes look thick at all. It has a very big fat brush made of synthetic bristles rather than plastic and I just find the mascara is quite wet and is definitely not 'fast' drying, I have been trying to use it but I have found myself using an old Lancome Hypnose mascara wand for it which works much better if you have one laying around!

Skin:
Garnier Fresh Essentials 24hr Hydrating Day Cream £5.09
I got this as I have just run out of my Simple Day Cream so I decided to try something different as this was a little bit cheaper, I chose the grape water one rather than rose water as I have a lot of rose smelling products and I thought I'd choose something different, I don't normally use fragranced face products but I do quite like it as it's quite refreshing and I really like it! It's really moisturising but dries really quickly leaving your skin soft and not sticky which is perfect for me as it will definitely speed up my makeup in the morning as I won't have to wait five minutes for it to soak in!

Garnier Fresh Essentials Eye Make-up Remover £2.99
As I bought the day cream I thought I would purchase the makeup remover too as I've found that using the same brand products, especially on your face can really help fight those nasty breakouts as the products are usually made to work together. This I find does the job really well even on water-proof mascara but other than the fragrance I can't tell much difference between this and the Simple Eye Makeup Remover

speak soon - becca xx

What's in my everyday makeup bag?

Now that the weather is starting to warm up and we're coming into Spring the makeup I've been using has definitely changed so this is a little update of what I'm using for my normal, everyday look :)

As my makeup bag is absolutely filthy and all the packaging has rubbed off of most of these I put them together in a little montage, so if the image is rubbish blame google images not me :)

Moisturizer: Simple Kind To Skin Vital Vitamin Day Cream

Foundation: Revlon PhotoReady Makeup - 003 Shell

Concealer: Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection Concealer - 3 Medium

Powder: MUA Pressed Powder - Shade 1

Bronzer: Max Factor Bronzing Powder - 02 Bronze

Blusher: Bourjois Blush - 54 Rose Frisson

Eye Primer: MUA Pro Eye Primer

Eye Shadow: GOSH Effect Powder - Meringue

Brow Pen: GOSH Brow Pen - 001 Venetian Brown

Highlight: L'Oreal Color Appeal Trio Pro for Hazel Eyes (Number 1)

Mascara: Lancome Hypnose Doll Eyes

Thanks for reading! for any questions, comments or suggestions email me at littlebeccabeauty@hotmail.co.uk or tweet me @littlebecca_x ♥

Top Nail Varnishes For Spring!

Hi everyone, so as it is getting into Spring now I decided to raid my nail varnish collection and have picked my 6 favourites for this Spring :)

I didn't realise when I took the photo's buy I'm definitely enjoying pinks this spring! I haven't bought any new nail varnishes recently so these aren't new apart from the MUA nail varnish but hopefully I'll be buying some more soon :)

Ruby Hammer Recommends £8.00 (as part of a set)
This nail varnish doesn't have a colour or number but it's a really nice peachy-pink but it isn't too bright. I was given this in a set for christmas and i can't find the link to it on the debenhams website but they have the set Here. These aren't the most amazing nail varnishes and I was expecting better from the makers of Ruby & Millie as I find the brush a bit short and sprouty but I love the colour :)

Nails Inc - Bristol £11.00

This nail varnish is a gorgeous nude colour with a pink undertone, if you just want something really natural and muted this is perfect. Nails Inc are quite pricey but they are fairly good quality and are quite often free gifts on magazines so keep your eyes peeled! This colour is actually discontinued now but I found it in the makeup section of my local TK Maxx where they quite regularly have nails inc products so go have a look :) (TK Maxx store locator)

Barry M Nail Paint - 305 Pink Flamingo £2.99

This is a really bright vivid pink, it comes out with a slightly more neon tinge on the nail than in the photo but it's just really girly and pretty which is why I chose it for spring :) The Barry M Nail Paints are amazing for the price they cost and I would strongly recommend them, however you do need two coats otherwise it looks quite opaque, you can find it here specifically or in superdrug :)

Models Own - Vintage Pink £5

This is one of my all time favourite nail varnishes! It is a really lovely dusty rose colour which is kind of between a nude and colour, the formulation is great as you only need one coat and it's not too thick or too runny :) I can't find this on the website but I bought it in River Island, but I think it's just been renamed to Soda Pop Pink (models own website) but anyway everybody should own this nail varnish it's just amazing!

Fearne Cotton - Coral £5.50

This is probably one of the brighter nail varnishes I have chosen which is a coral colour which is slightly more red, I like this as it seems to go with anything I wear and it's quite long lasting. This one I got in the Christmas set but you can buy it individually here where it's actually on sale at £1.37!

MUA Love Hearts Collection - U R Fab £2.00

I used this nail varnish in my fake nails post for the first time and I actually really like it, I'm always dubious about MUA as they are so cheap but I've bought quite a few products from there recently and I'm loving them. This nail varnish is a raspberry colour which I've seen a lot of recently, the actual nail varnish is good quality and the brush is practically the same as the nails inc ones so I would definitely recommend, this is limited edition so find it in superdrug or here before they all go!

So that was my top nail varnishes for spring, I'm planning a trip up to Westfields soon so if I buy any more nail varnishes I'll do another post as I absolutely love nail varnish at the moment :)

Thanks for reading! for any questions, comments or suggestions email me at littlebeccabeauty@hotmail.co.uk or tweet me @littlebecca_x ♥