Seventeen Stay Time Wear Primer Review

Time for another review on a recent first-time purchase.  I'll also be explaining the purposes of primer for those who haven't yet tried any! (For those who have... skip the first 3 paragraphs of this review)

I don't wear makeup every day but when I do I tend to go for pretty full-face looks. This means concealer, foundation, powder and blusher... eyeliners and sometimes eyeshadow too. 

Spending all that time carefully applying my makeup seems like a pretty useless ordeal when half-way through the day I find myself looking like an oily-hot mess. 

I do use quality makeup products but the fact that I have pretty oily skin in places means that I'm at a constant battle with keeping myself looking matte.

Voila. I thought I'd give some primer a go. 

Primer basically acts as a base for your foundation to go on top of and also prolongs the wear of it too. There are a variety of different primers for different skin - pore minimising, mattifying, luminous, hydrating etc. So depending on your skin type, different primers will have different effects.

This is the 'Seventeen Stay Time Long Wear Primer'.

The product reads 'FOR MAKE UP THAT STAYS PUT!'

Well, the rather enthusiastic use of bold writing, italics AND CAPITALS on that suggests that we should expect a very long-wearing primer.

But does it actually work?

At first I started applying it in pea-sized amounts with my finger, and found it was pulling at my skin a little. So I applied the product in larger amounts to cover my face area. It has a slightly sticky-feeling formula but given the fact I'd be applying other products over the top (ie foundation) I didn't dwell on this too much.

I have the annoying combination skin type so I found when it hit my drier face areas it didnt glide on as brilliantly either. However even with JUST the primer on my face, I could definitely notice my skin looking a whole lot smoother with a lot less visible red areas.

I found that when applying my foundation... in certain areas the product collected itself into tiny blobs that I had to brush off my face. Asides from this I did in fact find my makeup gliding over the product smoothly... and the end result was pretty mattified!

After going about my daily business which included babysitting and food-shopping, I did a couple of mirror checks and my foundation was looking pretty damn good! I didn't have the usual shiny face look which I HATE.

By the end of the day I obviously had some signs of wear on my face and a little oilyness but after 10+ hours of wear I am pleasantly surprised!

The only cons to this product are the facts that the formula is a little sticky and I did find it slightly drying. If you have super dry skin maybe this product isn't best for you. Overall though I think if you moisturise your skin well, this is a pretty nice product to have on those fuller-face makeup days! 

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For only £5.49 from Boots, I'm a happy customer! (There is also a buy 1 get 2nd half price deal on selected Seventeen products in Boots*) so if you're looking for a nice, inexpensive simple primer, I'd strongly suggest this! 

I know this was a fairly long winded review but for a first time purchase I wanted to be as helpful as possible!

As always thank you for reading :)

*Posted on 18/02/15 at 7:30pm - I don't know how long this deal is on for so it may not be when you read!

LUSH Unicorn Bubble Bar Review

Okay so it comes to no surprise that this happens to be my first product review.

I have a deep love for anything unicorn-related so when I saw this product my eyes glazed over and I HAD to purchase it.

It's basically one of Lush's bubble bars. If you're not familiar with these they are basically amazingly-scented bars that you crumble under the bath tap to create some lovely bath bubbles.

They do a fair few other bubble bars which I'll most likely be checking out in the near future!

SO, firstly this product is insanely cute. The colours, the tiny little stars and the fact it's a fricking unicorn horn kinda sold it to me at the get go. 

The smell... is so, so good too. I can't explain it other than describing it as a subtly sweet smell that isn't too overpowering. It smells like how I imagine ACTUAL magical fairydust would smell.

But down to the review of how well the product actually works.

For me, I do enjoy quite a lot of bubbles in my bath so I was interested to see how much product I needed to use.

I literally crumbled only the tip of the bar into the space where the water was running - and I instantly saw the bubbles begin! (This pleased me way too much... I need to get out more.)

However it wasn't satisfying my bubbly needs so I did end up crumbling about an inch worth of the product into the bath. This amount seemed to work great for me and I personally think this was a very reasonable unicorn-horn to bubble ratio. (?!) 

Obviously the product shape means it gets thicker so next time I'm likely to not need as much as I'm further down now.

In terms of the smell once I got IN the bath, there was a faint smell but it wasn't as strong as I expected. I do actually LOVE the smell of the bar so I was hoping I'd get out the bath smelling like a sparkly magnificent unicorn, possibly having grown wings in the process. Unfortunately the smell wasn't that incredible, but it was definitely still noticeable. 

All in all I still LOVE this product and I THANK Lush for coming up with this. It's definitely become one of my favourites and whilst I wont be using it for every bath it is a definite treat for those pamper evenings.

You cant go wrong with a unicorn horn you're able to crumble into your bathtub. It's magical.

Thanks for reading! 

Recent Beauty Haul!

I recently have been feeling very run down with my university dissertation, so... I figured this was the PERFECT excuse to go on a little beauty haul!

I bought some essentials and some, well, not-so-essentials! I wanted to treat myself to some little luxuries too - so here it all is...

Essentials are things like cotton-tips, hair grips and my MUCH needed highlighting kit! (Seriously my roots are awful)

And the rest are some brand new buys! I was feeling pretty confident in trying out a few new bits,

• I watch youtube reviews a lot and the Garnier Micellar cleansing water is a very popular favourite and I thought it was about time to purchase this!
  
• The Seventeen Stay-Time Wear Primer has also been a recommendation and I'm sick of my makeup refusing to stay in one place. Seriously the melted face look ISN'T hot so I'm hoping this will help things stay put a little more.
  
• I got two Possibility 'No Fuss Pot' face masks, for around 60p each! I thought this was pretty good seeing as you get 30g,.. compared to the £1 packets of only 20g. (I love me a bargain) I got these in vanilla creme brulee and peppermint ice cream.
  
• The middle product is a maybelline colour drama lip pencil in shade 'love me pink'.
  
• And laaaastly the little beauty at the end is a lush product! I finally got the unicorn horn! It's a bubble bar that you crumble under the bath tap to create... well, bubbles obviously.
  
  
  
  I WILL be doing reviews on each of these products as they are first-time purchases.
  
  Hope you enjoyed taking a snoop at my recent beauty-buys :)
  No doubt there'll be some more soon... my poor poor bank account.
  
  Thanks for reading
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