Which '-end' is best for you: High Lippies

Part three of three! In this post I will only be able to showcase one lipstick for you I'm afraid, even I know when to reign in my spending and after my first major high-end product (a GORGEOUS Chanel lipstick) I realised my spending forte is in low/mid-end without inducing a migraine of worry over how much high-end products are hurting my bank account.

Chanel Lipstick - Shade 424/ Edith

I bring you - the Chanel Rouge Coco Lipstick in 'Edith'. I tried not to cry as the nice lady gave me my receipt as I knew it would probably come back to haunt me in some way, I'd probably miss my train and not be able to afford a new ticket because of this lipstick, I'd probably lose this lipstick and the insane amount it cost me, but alas, all was safe and I have begun the process of actually allowing myself to touch the packaging without sterile gloves in fear of tainting the beauty. at £26 this beauty is worth every penny, every 26,000 of them. Gorgeous pigmentation, sheer application and moisturising extras. I don't have to worry about how my lips look with this on, I can simply trust the hole in my wallet that this was a real investment for my makeup collection, one I'll cherish forever (yet hopefully never run out of - don't wanna be paying £52 for just two lipsticks...I could get 52 MUA ones for that price! They just wouldn't be Chanel...)

Well that's that my loves! The first full installment of my 'which -end' series! Let me know if you love/hate them and I'll continue/stop on that basis.

As always, leave a comment with your favourite '-end' lipstick so I can check it out! xxx

Which '-end' is best for you: Mid Lippies

Here comes the second part of my lipsticks 'which -end' series! By far my favourite in the field of 'mid-end' lipsticks comes MAC, I'm not sure I would call it 'mid-end' exactly as it is, really, a high-end brand (in that it features in department stores, not drug stores.) But the competitive prices make it hard to compare (price-wise) to the likes of Estee Lauder, Dior and Chanel.

Yves Rocher Lipstick - Shade 21/ Litchi

Up first comes the likes of Yves Rocher. A, slightly cheaper, yet quality makeup brand. This fits perfectly into 'mid-end' with it quality pricing, but sours way past high-end with it's quality. I've been in love with this lipstick ever since it arrived in one of my Birchboxes (before they randomly stopped sending them to me that is.) I'd previously owned a fantastic red shade, so seeing a more natural colour for a more day-to-day basis really excited me. This is available on Yves Rocher's website for purchase at a quality price of £12.90.

MAC Lipstick - Shade 'Velvet Teddy'

Following on comes MAC, a brand I'm sure everybody has come to know and love. My favourite shade for the coming months is Velvet Teddy, it's a matte shade, so make sure to apply plenty of lip balm beforehand! Despite the difficulty of making sure my lips are in perfect condition before I apply this out of fear the whole world will see my flakiness, the colour pay-off is incredible and I wouldn't trade it for anything else. It also goes excellent-ly with MAC's lip pencil in 'Whirl' or Rimmel's 'Tiramisu'. This can be found on the MAC website for a stunning £15.50. A lot to spend in comparison to MUA, but well worth it.

Two parts down, one to go! I hope you're enjying this mini series, I have to say it really helps me post more regularly as it hurts my inner neat-freak much more to see a series left unfinished for two weeks than just no blog post for two weeks!

Anyways, toodlepip my loves! As ever, leave me your recommendations in the comments! xxx

Which '-end' is best for you: Low Lippies

Like many beauty addicts, my spending habits often result in a compulsory budget around two days after pay day. So here I've decided to begin a mini series - which '-end', meaning high-end, mid-range (or mid-end for the sake of this series,) and low-end. Each have their pros and cons, which I will try my best to highlight these here (with examples of my favourites of course.)

Starting with low-end, I could go on for days about some of my favourites (there are just so many amazing drugstore brands!) But for the sake of really highlighting the differences in prices I will be showing you my favourite MUA and L'oreal lippies.

MUA Lipstick - Shade 11

For some reason only half of the MUA lipsticks have actual names (i.e. Flamingo, naked, etc). This is my favourite from thir collection to date, the picture really gives no justice to the sheer pigmentation in comparison to when it is applied directly to the lips (straight from the bullet and using a brush seem to give a slightly different pigmentation.) This is available in Superdrug for just £1!

My next low-end favourite is a L'oreal repurchase of mine - 

L'oreal Lipstick - Shade 136/ Flamingo Elegance

This is an incredibly beautiful, sheer, highly pigmented recommendation of mine, I also love that it has the brand engraved in the bullet - it gives it such a high end look, and for only £6.99 you get the best of both worlds!

I hope you enjoyed this little installment in what I hope will be a much-loved series! Each category (i.e. lips) will be split into three posts - low, mid and high. This saves for too much writing for me and reading for you!

What's your favourite drugstore lipstick? Let me know in the comments and I'll be sure to try them out! xxx

Beauty Haul

So as mentioned in my first post, i went a little crazy shopping the other day. Granted, there is probably far too much! I'm justifying it to myself because i hadn't gone makeup shopping in months AND had recently cleared out my makeup collection almost to a minimum. 

An overview - MAC, KIKO, INGLOT, Models Own.

My first stop - The models own bottle shop!

Next was MAC.

Then came KIKO.

And finally INGLOT!

I decided that the best thing to do was to go all out - it was go hard or go home at this point! I started off at the models own bottle shop in Westfield Stratford City (see here) as I went before 12pm on a Sunday so nothing was really open yet. I had a lovely chat with the girl working there (shoutout to Jasmine) and they had an incredible little sale going, almost any 5 items in the entire store for only £20! Naturally I took advantage of this deal and got myself a little bit of everything. Firsty I went for the two eyeshadow palettes available - one in smokey and one in nude, then came nail polish! I went for a more natural colour in 'Midsummer Mauve' and a more pastel-coloured pink in the shade 'Paradise Pink'. Next was a lipstick from their festival collection, another gorgeous pastel pink in the shade 'Daisy Chain'. They were also giving out a free gift with any purchase so i received a lovely sparkly black eyeliner!

Next was MAC, oh MAC. You beauty. This is without a doubt my favourite part of any haul and will forever be the key to my heart. So, naturally i went a lil' nuts. (I'll also mention now that in the eyeshadow quad i already owned 3 of the 4 eyeshadows, this is just how i had organised them before I photographed them.) So skinwise i went for the 'sized to go' version of the fix+. I've heard many good things about this product from the likes of Jaclyn Hill and Kathleen Fuentes. I also picked up a transparent finish powder in order to mattify certain areas of my face without necessarily colouring them using a normal pressed powder. Only slightly skin-related, but next came the brush cleanser. You get one massive 235ml bottle for only £11! I've seen much worse brands who offer for less product and charge more for it! After skincare we have the rest of the face, i had already been to my local MAC counter earlier in the week and picked up my usual foundation, unfortunately though they didn't have my usual concealer so I just picked up a studio fix concealer in NW20. Next: eyes. I picked up a refill pan of 'Amber Lights'  as one of my favourite youtubers absolute raves about this, and boy was she right! It's a gorgeous highly pigmented shimmery bronze that i've only had for two days but can already not live without! I also picked up 3 sized to go pigments in 'Melon', 'Naked' and 'Kitschmas'. Finally onto lips! I picked up two lipliners in the shades 'Ruby Woo' and 'Whirl'. The former was to go with one of my favourite reds of all time, the latter was for the lipstick which I also picked up that day - 'Velvet Teddy'. This is a beautiful matte brown-ey nude. The final item i picked up was a sized to go lipglass in 'Pink Lemonade'. Annoyingly the lady in the shop managed to charge me twice for this and i didn't notice till i got home, so I ended up paying more than I would have even with a full sized lipglass!

After I spent 90% of my budget in MAC i decided to head to a slightly more cost-friendly store - KIKO! I purchased three lipsticks here (as rather than being over £15 they were under £3) I got 902, 905 and 906. I also went for two lipliners in here as i had chucked away all of mine due to old-age or completely incorrect colouring. I picked up 701 and 712. I also picked up one of their CLIC palletes as they had some incredibly pigmented shadows! I got the shades 226 (as more of a blush), 223, 211 and 411. I also picked up one of their 'Mystery eye pencils' which are not such a mystery once you realise you have to open the case to use the actual pencil! Finally i picked up some cosmetic sponges and KIKO's take on a beautyblender, i adore my blender but it would be nice to know of some cheaper alternatives for when mine finally takes it's last steps (or sweeps should i say!)

Finally I decided to bite the bullet and grab myself one of INGLOT's freedom palettes. The staff there were incredibly helpful in helping me figure out what i wanted in my palette, and even showed me a fragrance pan i could get! I'll be considering that one next time I go there. Instead i stuck to eyeshadows and lipstick this time. Eyes-wise, i went for 347 (far right), 07 (one left), and a brow powder in 557 (middle). Next was lipsticks and I went for: 06, (second to left) and 52 (far left). I also got a handy little refill remover for removing the pans once they're all used up to replace with new ones!

That finishes the makeup part of my haul, I hope you enjoyed and got some inspiration on some good makeup! Both high end and drugstore, until next time sweets! xxx

Introduction

So, hi! I'm Jemma, this blog is here to deal with my inner beauty and lifestyle ramblings alike. There may be the occasional deep lifestyle post, or it may be entirely makeup related, who knows what the future holds for lipsticks n lemonades just yet!

This post is more of a get to know me post, I will create an FAQ later, but for those of you who will join me from the start of my blogging journey - this is for you!

I thought it would be a nice idea to introduce myself with a couple of random facts, so here goes:
1. I'm 16 (very nearly 17)
2. I do online school (much like home school, the only difference being i teach myself)
3. Instead of college i work 3 jobs - waitressing in a cafe, event waitressing, and a pharmacy worker.
4. My passion for makeup has left me in a lot of debt to my mum over the years
5. I have lived in the UK my whole life
6. I used to live much more central until i moved away when i was six
7. I'm a quarter Polish (this will explain why i can NEVER get a tan)
8. I have an insane interest in Pyschology
9. I am hoping to study Occupational Therapy at uni
10. Hopefully it will be my slash career - MUA/Occupational Therapist
11. I previously had a beauty blog orientated around nail polish - my beauty interests have since developed!
12. Working at MAC is another aspiration of mine
13. Before online school i went to 6 different schools
14. I am in charge of the makeup counters at my pharmacy due to the reviews customers have given
15. I went (all out) shopping yesterday, so look forwards to a haul!

I hope this post helped you to get to know me a little better, leave a comment so I can get to know you as well! xxx