It's Powder Time

Day 8 of blogmas and I thought it'd be about time I do something a little bit different. I'm still trying to get back onto the theme of beauty, but it's about products I have never really mentioned before. Powder is the bane of my life. As I have quite an oily T-Zone, but am dry everywhere else, it's hard to find a good balancing foundation. Therefore, my alternative option is a powder. I will usually put the powder everywhere to set my makeup and then go over the places that are oil just to give it a matte-looking finish.

I don't think I've ever spoken about bareMinerals in any of my posts before. One reason being, I think that their products can be hit and miss. Sometimes, I am really satisfied withe the product and then other times, I'm confused as to why the products are sold at a particular price due to the quality not being great. On the other hand, if you've read some of my previous posts, you'll see how much I love all things MAC. I have two powders from each of these brands and in some respects, they're all similar.

bareMinerals - Medium Beige and bareMinerals - Mineral Veil  are both from the limited edition - Original Foundation Get Started Kit in Light. This basically gives you a kit with step-by-step instructions as to how to apply the makeup provided. It's handy, but I don't think that the brush quality is very good.

MAC. I literally love every product that I've ever bought from MAC. I think the quality of all the products are great, the prices are fair to the product and the quality is unreal. This brand is an all-rounder. DISCLAIMER: I have not been paid to talk to you about any of these products and they're just my own personal opinion. I do not know what I would do without MAC as they sell some of my favourite makeup. I'm so upset that they discontinued one of their mascaras because it was the only one that made me eyelashes look amazing. Anyway, onto their powders. The two that I own are: Studio Fix in the shade NW25 and the Pro Longwear Powder in the shade Light Plus. The Studio Fix powder only really suits my skin tone when I have fake tan on. The lady who colour matched me in the store matched me while I was on holiday and therefore, I was darker.

Try Not To ... Blush!

It's a week into blogmas and time feels like it's going so fast! I cannot believe that I started this blog nearly 12 months ago! This is my 51st post and if you didn't get the pun, it's one about blusher. I'm not the world's biggest fan of blusher, but I do like to add a bit of colour to the apples of my cheeks every now and again. I like quite natural-looking blushers so it doesn't look too heavy or fake. I have two single blushers to talk to you about and then there are a few in some sets. Let's get to it...

Okay, first up is an oldie. It's 'thrrrol' from Benefit, but unfortunately, it got discontinued! Boo... There's nothing worse than a product that you love being discontinued. Anyway, when first looking at the product, it looks incredibly light and almost too unrealistic. It has quite a lot of pigment is so it sort of acts like a highlighter too. However, when applying on top of a BB cream or foundation, it looks really nice - almost giving the face a healthy glow.

Next up is one of my all time favourite brands for blush - Nars. The single blush that I own is called Gilda and it's just SO amazing. It is rather pricy for a blush - £23 - however, it has lasted me for nearly two years now and I'm no where near hitting pan. It's a deep pink and you only need the slightest amount on your brush when applying. The good thing about Nars blushers are that they leave you with hardly any fall-out, if any. It's going straight in my basket!

So the previous Christmas, I was very lucky in the sense that my Mother was able to get her hands on the limited edition Nars - Virtual Domination palette. What a babe. She gave it to me as a Christmas present and I was just so shocked! The palette contains: 3 blushers - Sex Fantasy, Deep Throat and Final Cut (the names are rather... let's say... unusual, but the quality of product is incredible), a bronzer - Laguna and a highlighter - Miss Liberty. I think this palette was around the £50 and that's such a bargain! The bronze is full-sized and the blushers and highlighter is half the usual size of the separate products.

The blusher inside the Naked - On The Run palette is a bit to much for me, however, the palette itself is very good and handy.

Last, but by no means least, is the Urban Decay - Naked Flushed palette. This contains a bronzer, highlight and blush and the finish from the blush just completes the face.

A Tame Smokey Eye

It's day 6 of blogmas and I haven't really done much on makeup. I've decided to show you my go-to easy smokey eye look. When my eye makeup is not very heavy, I tend to wear a lipstick that is 'more in your face' - basically not nude. My base makeup is not really heavy either. There's a slight amount of contouring, but nothing too serious. I have highlighted underneath the arch of my brows as it not only makes them stand out, but it makes the eyeshadow from the crease seem more defined; not harsh. As you can see from the image, I am not wearing any eyeliner - shock horror! I love having really long, extended lashes and if you've got eyeliner on with a smokey eye, it can get a bit too much. Therefore, the lashes looked super long without eyeliner.

So to get this eye look, I used a range of different products that I built up on. These include: Illamasqua - Wolf, MAC - Wedge, MAC Embark and Zoeva - Pure (part of the Naturally Yours palette).

This four eyeshadows combined can give you a very build-able brown smokey eye. As all the colours are similar in terms of texture, they're easy to blend. They're completely matte so they have no pigmentation.

To start with, I prime my eyes with the Urban Decay - Primer Potion. This is a long-lasting eyeshadow base - it certainly holds it for a good 10 hours! Also, for those that have a Sephora near you, their primer works wonders! To follow, I applied the shade pure in the corner of my eyes. As this is the coolest and lightest shade that I used, I helps create a gradual blend. I then went on to doing my crease. I really didn't want this look to be dramatically heavy so I applied the tiniest amount of product on to a MAC 217 - Blending Brush and built it up. I used both Wolf and Embark to do this. To finish with, I applied Wedge all over the lid. Blending it into the crease and inner corner - next to the tear duct.

As I said before, I love my lashes to be super long so I used the mascaras: Chanel - Le Volume, MAC - Black Extreme and Clinque - Bottom Lash Mascara.

A MAC and KIKO Haul

Why does this year feel like it is going so fast? Ahhh... Anyway, it's the 3rd of December and the third post I have for you for blogmas. As I previously mentioned, I am still doing main posts on Thursdays and today, I'm showing you my most recent purchases from MAC and KIKO.

So for those of you who have already followed me on Instagram - jodiemoon__, or my Snapchat - jodielmoon, you'll have seen that I went to Manchester on Monday. This was to spend some of my birthday money and hint to some of the things that I would like for Christmas.

KIKO - I haven't been to KIKO since August and this was while I was in Portugal (I did a post on what I bought there - click here to view). The Trafford Centre have just opened a KIKO shop and when I saw it a literally was so shocked! I didn't know that there was one being put there so I was so happy! The quality is unreal and it's so cheap.

Things that I purchased from KIKO:

Mascara - £7.90
Nail Varnish - £4.90
Travel Jar (10ml) - £1.00 x2
Eyeshadow - 124 - £2.90
Eyeshadow - 134 - £2.90
Pencil Lip Gloss - £3.90
Long Lasting Stick - 04 - £6.90
Long Lasting Stick - 19 - £6.90


MAC - Never in a million years, at the age of 16, would I think that I'd have 16 MAC lipsticks. I'm so incredibly fortunate to be able to buy these products; it's such a luxury! Some of you may think that 16 is obsessive, but this is my only really big collection and I'm proud of it. The on that I've recently got was - High Strung. I did 'Back 2 MAC' - sending back 6 of your old packaging in replacement for a lipstick. The finish is Frost and it would go so well with a heavily pigmented eye. Not only that, but I think it suits every hair colour. I also repurchased the brush cleanser - better than any I've ever tried and the eye brow applicator in the shade Lingering. I really wanted an orange eyeshadow for the crease when creating a smoky eye. I've seen so many tutorials where people do this and it just makes the eye look perfect. I got the eyeshadow, the refill, in the shade Rule.

Things that I purchased in the MAC section of Selfridges:

Eye Brows - Lingering - £14.00
Eye Shadow - Rule - £10.00
Brush Cleanser - £12.00
Back 2 MAC lipstick - High Strung - Normally £15.50

Lee Stafford's Hair Treatment

Ever since I got my hair cut to my shoulders, I've regretted it. Around 7 years ago, my hair was so thick and long (falling just above my hips). A year later, I decided to get about 6-7 inches cut off. This meant that my hair was classed as a 'medium length'. During this period of time, I did not use hair straighteners, curlers or crimpers so my hair was in pretty good condition. However, I started getting into watching TV and I noticed that some of the celebrities had really nice short, blonde hair. I am currently a brunette and have been for quite a while now, but about 5 years ago, I dyed my hair blonde and got it cut to my shoulders; this look really did NOT suit me, but at the time, I was adamant that I wanted it done.

Anyway, since that stupid time where I thought it would be a good idea to cut all my hair off, I've been trying to find ways to grow it/ make my hair look longer. I did go through a stage of wearing extensions, but nothing annoys me more then when people's extensions do not match their hair colour. So since I dyed my hair quite a lot, they were not the option for me, however, I did wear them for a considerable amount of time. Due to dyeing and using extensions, my hair became very damaged. This did not help with all the heat products I was using on top of this. Your hair is one of your main characteristics so you've got to make sure you like it; it needs to look healthy!

I've previously mentioned Lee Stafford's products in a haul post and I'm using them again. There are 3 things: a shampoo, treatment and a conditioner.

Lee Stafford - Hair Growth Set
Lee Stafford - Hair Growth Shampoo
Lee Stafford - Hair Growth Conditioner 
Lee Stafford - Hair Growth Treatment

Makeup and Skincare Haul

I feel like my last few posts have all been about hauls and yet again, I have another for you. Recently, I've just been obsessed with trying new products and re-purchasing others. Last week I did two orderers online - Debenhams and Beauty Bay.

Debenhams order -
With the Debenhams order, if you ordered two Lancôme products, you got a load of free goodies and everyone loves free goodies, right? Also, if you bought the La vie est belle perfume, you got a free body lotion (which I love!). I'll link everything below and I'll state with were the products that I got for free; there's a lot that were free! To top that off too, there was 10% off on all beauty and fragrance.

Beauty Bay order -
I've never tried anything from the Anastasia Beverly Hills range and I've see that their products are very highly rated. I thought I'd give an eyebrow products for a go as I feel like that's the thing I lack the most in my collection. I've also never tried anything from Shavata before. I normally get the Brow Enhancing Serum from Boots but paying £38 to see a slight improvement is a little bit disheartening - especially when you've bought 3! So I thought I'd give this ago; so far, so good. I do realise that this order was slightly risky in the sense that I'd never tried any of these things, but you never know unless you try.

Debenhams order -
Lancôme - La vie est belle - 100ml perfume x2
Lancôme - La vie est belle - body lotion (free)
Lancôme - Brush (free)
Lancôme - Lip gloss - Glow in Love (free)
Lancôme - Hypnôse Mascara - Black (free)
Lancôme - Eyeliner - Black (free)
Lancôme - Moisturiser - Hydra Zen (free)
Lancôme - Blusher (free)
Lancôme - Makeup bag (free)
MAC - Cremesheen Glass - Double Dare
Clinique - Bottom Lash Mascara - Black

Beauty Bay order -
Anastasia Brow Wiz - Auborn
Shavata - Brow Strengthener

You can see this post on my Instagram page - jodiemoon__

The 4 Perfect MAC Lip Liners

One of my favourite beauty brands is MAC and their range in shades just continues to get better. I think it's fair to say that I'm notoriously known for my collection of MAC lipstick collection. Recently, I've got into the lip liners and I'm going to talk to you about the 4 that I've recently purchased. Not only is the quality great, but they're also such a great price - £12.50. For high-end brands, this is a very reasonable price. Also, if you want to get MAC products slightly cheaper, you can order them online at Debenhams; they do discounts of 10% ever season. Depending on whether you shop at Debenhams regularly, you can also sign up for their Beauty Club Card where you get 3 points for ever £1 you spend. Then, once you've collected 500 points, you get a £5 reward at the end of that month. Therefore, it's better to order all you MAC, Chanel or Too Faced products online there. They also sell Tom Ford products so you can get some really good offers there. Now, onto the lip liners... 


Dervish - A pink liner with a slight hint of beige

Cherry - A classic red. Perfect before apply a lipstick on top or by itself

Subculture - A classic nude; perfect for everyday 

Beet - A purple-tone plum shade. Great followed by Odyssey

Check out my Instagram to keep up-to-date with the products I buy and places I got to - jodiemoon__