Happy (Royal) Wedding Day!

It's finally here!! I'm not quite sure if anyone is as excited as me, but I hope you all are.
My plans for today are getting up ridiculously early to go to Hyde Park to watch the wedding on the big screens (we have to get there super early because they are only letting a certain amount of people in) I'm then coming home hopefully in time to catch the street party my road is having. It's all very exciting!
Here are a couple of British bits I have treated myself to:

Lush Street party bath bomb, Will & Kate mug (£6 Marks and Spensers)

The Bunting is officially up!

Hope you all have a good day!
Rachy xxx

INGLOT e/s palettes: swatches & FOTD

Yesterday I trekked it all the way to Westfields shopping centre, mainly to check out the INGLOT store and get some eyeshadows in the freedom system. For those of you who don't knoe, the freedom system is basically where you pick an amount of eyeshadow pans (5, 6 or 10) to go in a free palette. You can choose from circular or square pans (the square are larger therefore slightly more expensive)

There was a huge range of colour so I got to picking straight away. The idea was I was going for a neutral-ish palette and a smokey one. Here's the two I came out with:

-These two palettes cost about £21 each which I think is fantastic value compared to mac (the pans are also slightly bigger than mac and to me the quality of product feels just as good)
-I realise now that looking at my colour choice I chose quite autumny looking colours but I think they will work for my colouring in the summer aswell. The darker palette is for me to experiement more with grey-ish smokey eye looks.

Closer look at neautral palette & swatches:

Unfortunately the colours don't come with names, just numbers on the bottoms of the pans but as you can see this palette has a glittery cream, gold, a couple of shimmery browns and a khaki type colour.

Closer look and swatches of grey/smokey palette:

In this palette there is a pretty pearly white to highlight and different shades and depths of grey (some more blue, some more plummy)

And here is my FOTD using the neutral palette: I used the 1, 2 and 4th colours in the neautral palette. I also used MAC eyeliner in rosmary & time (to the beach collection) and MAC creamblend blush- something special.
The lipstick I used was amongst another couple of things I picked up on my trip to westfields:


1. Marks & spensers lipstick -wild geranium (£6)

2. Next nail polishes in mink & Coral (£2 each)

There you go!

Anyone else have any inglot palettes? What kind of colours do you have?

Rachy xxx

Follow me on Facebook & Twitter :)

Hello ladies just a quick post to let you know that for a couple of weeks now I have been available on Facebook and Twitter, and am having lots of fun on twitter I must say!

I have the follow icons on the side of my blog page but incase you havn't seen or clicked on them, here are my pages so add me up!

http://twitter.com/#!/Allthingsrachy

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/All-things-Rachy/142597215810740

Rachy xxx

Royal Wedding makeup tutorial- 1st vlog post!

So i've been debating doing a video blog post for a while now as it is a pretty scarey idea but I have finally bit the bullet and got round to doing one. I will warn you, it is my first video so its not amazing, there is no editing so it's quite long (I dont know how to yet), I accidently left the tv on in the background and all together its a little bit cringey, buy hey, it's a start!
So please have a watch if you want, please be nice and your comments and feedback are welcome!

The look I did a tutorial on is a fun royal wedding makeup look. A little obvious, blue white and red, but what can I say...I'm feeling patriotic!

(product list below video)



Product list:

Face: Bobbi brown corrector-porcelain bisque, Collection 2000 lasting perfection concealer, Barry M red blusher

Eyes: Illamasqua brow cake- thunder, Sleek primer palette- white, Pixi eyeshadow- pearly white, Mac mineralize eyeshadow duo- blue my mind, Mac pearlglide eyeliner-petrol blue, Rimmel white eyeliner, Collection 2000 skyscraper lash mascara

Lips: Never to busy to be beautiful- lip barrier & red lip glitter, Gosh lipstick- 60 Lambada

Hope you enjoyed, as I said, I will be greatfull for any feedback

Rachy xxx

FOTN: Shadowy lady with a pink lip

Last night I curled my hair for the first time in agessss. Curled with my regular sized GHD's, Tresemme heat styling spray, and tonnes of hairspray...sorry ozone layer! So if you like this is a HOTN as well as the run of the mill FOTN

Face: Mixture of Maxfactor weightless foundation & Mac studio fix fluid-NW15, MUA blush-shade 1, Mac cream colour base- Hush

Eyes: Bobbi brown corrector-porcelain bisque, Collection 2000 lasting perfection concealer- 1 fair, Illamasqua brow cake-thunder, Mac prep + prime eye-light, all colours in MAC shadowy lady e/s quad, MAC eye kohl- smoulder, Pixi gel liner- onyx, Collection 2000 skyscraper mascara

Lips: Mac pro longwear lipcream- overtime, NARS lipgloss- turkish delight

Hope you like

Rachy xxx

NARS Turkish Delight Lipgloss

So I went up Oxford street today to get a dress for tonight, and of course when the clothes shopping wasn't going too well I abandoned mission and went makeup shopping :) I popped into the very posh Liberty and got my very first NARS product..Turkish Delight Lipgloss! I'm sure most of you will have heard of this lipgloss as it is much raved about. I went to the NARS counter with this in mind but when I looked at the glosses it really was turkish delight that caught my eye first :)

Nars Turkish Delight Lipgloss

When I got home I noticed that Turkish delight is a pretty close match to MAC's Prolong wear lipcreme in Overtime and they look lovely worn together.

Turkish delight over Overtime

Any Nars lipglosses you love?

Rachy xxx

Good boyfriends buy you Lush :)

My boyfriend returned home from work yesterday with a yummy smelling present in his hand, A bag of lush! He treated me to this as like an early easter gift/general spoiling because he was up central London, the land of Lushes! Here's what he picked out:

Top row L to R > Bottom row L to R:

1.Dirty spring wash showergel- I think this one may have been a bit of a present for himself actually lol as he said he loves the minty smell (I do to) So because it's a big bottle I think we'll be keeping this one back at his flat at uni to share :)

2.Marathon Bubble bar- I hadn't even heard of this one but Sean (bf) informed me that it was exclusive to the London stores for the London Marathon. Now I didn't run the marathon myself but i did go to watch my dad which involved alot of walking around (poor me!) So I think I was due a nice relaxing bath yesterday :) The smell is very similar to the Wiccy magic Muscles massage bar (which I lurvee) so they must have similar ingredients.

3. Fluffy Egg ballistic (wrapped in a very cute bunny knot wrap): This is so cute! this would make the perfect little easter gift for someone who you'd like to give something other than chocolate to. The Egg has the scent of Lush Snow fairy (yum) and I'm actually going to make Sean take this back off me and give it to me on easter!

4.Mint julips lip scrub- Yummy minty lip scrub. Another one that I suspect Sean may have bought for himself, he loves eating them (the naughty child that he is). But yeh, a nice scrub to get rid of any dead skin before moisturising your lips.

5.Ultrabalm- I have never had this one before but I can tell it will be a good one for me as I suffer from eczema on my hands and the occasional dry patch on my arms, elbows etc. This is described as very much a multi-purpose products to be used on any dry patches and even lips. Sean also informed me (get him!) that some tattoo artists use it to keep the tattoo moist instead of savlon or other harsher products in the healing process.

6. It started with a kiss lip tint- I've Had this before and loved it but sadly I lost it. But now I have a new one, yay! Lovely pink colour looks very natural on the lips and has a nice spiced appley scent.

7.Hippy chick ballistic- Another cute easter product that I think I'll make sean take away from me untill easdter. Has a nice grapefruit scent (similar to happy hippy shower gel)

So there you have it, that was my boyfriends lush haul...for me!
Rachy xxx

FOTD: Golden eyes

I must appologise, I expect you're all getting tired of my FOTD's by now...but seeing as I do my makeup every day...its a given that there are alot of FOTD's, not all of them I think are worth capturing but for those ones that are a little different I like to stick on here. So here is the latest installment in my FOTD mega-seriesSo I decided to ditch the liner today, and instead I have gone for a soft gold eye with bold lip.

Face: Maxfactor weightless foundation- light ivory, Barry M red blusher, MAC msf- soft and gentle.

Eyes: Illamasqua brow cake- thunder, Bobby brown corrector- porcelain bisque, collection 2000 lasting wear concealer, Sleek primer palette-yellow, Sleek peach palette- bellini, 17 vintage love metalic nudes- gold, Sleek volume & lengthen mascara, Rimmel white eyeliner (waterline).

Lips: Mac lip pencil- Beet, Mac kissable lipcolour- Scan-delicious.

Rachy xxx

Recreating Pixiwoo's Catwalk trend: Jean-Pierre Braganza

I just watched Pixiwoo Sam's latest video on The Jean Pierre Braganza Catwalk look and with nothing else to do I decided to give it a try myself. I have a few colours that I thought could work for the look and it didn't look to difficult to create so I just did this look for a bit of fun...

Check Pixiwoo's youtube channel or blog for the video, and here's the face chart for the look:

Admittedly my recreation isn't the best in the world, it was a bit of a rush job but it was quite fun and easy to do, and my pictures make me giggle cause I think I look like the devil (so good potential haloween makeup lol):

As I said this was quite a simple look, so there werent many products involved. Here's what I used:

Face: Maxfactor weightless foundation- light ivory, Mac cream colour base- Virgin isle, Barry M red blusher

Eyes: Illamasqua brow cake- Thunder, Bobbi brown corrector- porcelain bisque, Mac cream colour base- Virgin isle, Barry M red blusher, Pixi gel liner- Onyx, Sleek lengthen & volumise mascara

Lips: Maybelline moisture extreme lip liner- 56 red glamour, Mac venemous villains lipglass- revenge is sweet

Hope my devilish recreation hasn't scared you too much!

Rachy xxx

Blogsale gem- MAC shadowy lady quad: FOTD

I only have one MAC eyeshadow quad so far and I love it, so when I saw a basically brand new quad pop up in http://joybunny24.blogspot.com/ 's blogsale for just £10 I had to snap it up! What I liked about this quad from the start is that the colours are bold and and the blue is quite different ( I do love a bold smokey eye on a night out) and it is definatly not your average neutrals quad.

I was surprised with the speedy delivery of the quad, Joy only posted yesterday and it arrived this morning..so natrually I had to rip it open and try it on! Heres what I came up with:

MAC Shadowy Lady quad: L to R: Shadowy Lady (Matte), Deep truth (Frost), Smudged violet (Frost), Lightfall (Satin).

And here's my shadowy lady look:

I really like the way it turned out and I think this quad is good for creating quite an easy smokey eye (all the colours are there for you) So here's what I used:

Face:Maxfactor weightless foundation- Light Ivory 40, Bobby brown corrector- Porcelain bisque, Mac MSF- Soft and gentle.

Eyes: Sleek primer palette- white primer, Mac e/s's: Lightfall (all over brow bone & lid), Smudged violet (Over lid up to crease), Deep truth (blended into crease & along lower lash line), Shadowy lady (outer corner of crease and lower lash line). Pixi pearl coloured e/s (corner of eye & brow bone), Mac Pearlglide eyeliner- Petrol blue (to line lid), Mac eye kohl- smoulder (waterline), Maxfactor Masterpiece max mascara.

Lips: Nothing but Blistex, my lips need healing :(

Hope you like, I certainly do! Check out Joy's blogsale for more Mac & other branded makeup bargains

Rachy xxx

Discount Urban Decay Haul

So whats better than a haul? A discounted one! And I am here to share with you what bits I have aquired for myself over the last couple of weeks and at what prices :)

Urban Decay Lipstick- Jailbait, 2x Urban decay pigments- Shag & X, Urban decay liquid liner- Lucky

I got the two pigments and the liner on a recent trip to TK Maxx. Now I'm not the biggest fan of TK Maxx, well im not a fan atall but after seeing http://ramblingsofacosmeticjunkie.blogspot.com 's recent post about the summer sandles she found in there I decided to give it another try. However I scoured the shoe section to no avail. A quick scan of the rest of the shop told me all I needed to know; clothes all over the place, probably more hassle than its worth sifting through all that lot.... So while my mum and boyfriend were taking forever I drifted over to the tatty looking makeup/shampoo/random bits and bobs section and had a little dig. After a detailed digging I found myself a couple of gems....

The two pigments were in a little pouch together, £5 for the both. RRP- £12 I think

The eyeliner was £4, RRP £9.

I like all of the colours, they are all nice and neutral so very wearable.

The Lipstick I bought separataly for £4.85 with free p&p on the website http://www.cheapsmells.com/

Here are some swatches

Jailbait lipstick, pigments: Shag, X. Liner: Lucky

Not the best picture but this is what the lipstick looks like.

Any of you girls found any discount makeup bits lately?

Rachy xxx

FOTD

you know the drill...

Didn't intend for my lips to match my tshirt but it just turned out that way :)

Face: Collection 2000 lasting wear concealer, Mac creamblend blush- something special Mac MSF- soft & gentle

Eyes: Bobby brown corrector- porcelain bisque, Illamasqua brow cake-thunder, 17 vintage love metallic nudes palette- 2 lightest shades, Rimmel white eyeliner, Pixi gel liner- onyx, Maxfactor masterpiece max mascara.

Lips: Gosh long lasting lip marker- red, Sleek pout polish- electro peach

Rachy xxx

My illness essentials :(

So this is abit of a feeling sorry for myself post..but I think i've needed to get it out of my system for a while now!

The last couple of weeks has been crazy hectic with uni work (I'm supposed to be essay writing as we speak) and I am lucky enough to have been ill with a rotten chest cough and blocked sinuses for just over 2 weeks now! I have tried EVERYTHING. Medicine, nasal spray, painkillers, eating healthy to the extreme, loads of fruit juice & green tea, even more water.....but nothing is working..if anything my cough is getting worse :( Whats even more rubbish is that I went to the doctor and he just said because its a viral infection theres nothing you can do, no antibiotics...(untill it eventually turns into a chest infection and they give me some bloody antibiotics!) So now I am stuck feeling like crap and riding this illness out in one of my busiest essay writing weeks of the year...brilliant. Not much is making me feel better. But here are a few of my illness essentials that are easing the pain...

1, 2 & 3- Paracetemol, kleenex tissues (plenty of) & Olbas oil: Won't go into too much detail incase you catch my illness but these are the obvious neccessities. The olbas/vicks oil was one of the only things the doctor did reccomend doing (inhaling drops of it in boiling water) unfortunatly that scalds my weakling nostrils so I just rub it on my chest at night instead.

4. Garnier eye roll on- My eyes are really puffy and all shades of red/grey/purple at the moment, so and eye hydrating process is a must. Still in the testing process of this so can't tell you too much but the metal rollerball applicater is nice and cooling and I think it's doing something for the puffiness.

5. Superdrug illuminating moisture cream- My skin is pretty dull and in need of a bit of extra glow, so the slight pearly sheen in this moisturiser is doing that nicely, I also really like the smell.

6. Mac cremeblend blush-something special: Im loving this blusher because it takes minimum effort to apply (dab and blend with fingertips) and leaves me with the natural dewy finish I am looking for, powdery is the last thing I want at the moment!

7. Bobbi brown corrector- porcelain bisque: I have abandoned the concealer for the moment as it is a bit heavy on my tired eyes but the correcter is giving me the perfect, blendable brightness and lightness I need.

8. Blisetex relief cream (formerly blisteze): HALLELUJAH! I have saved the best till last. Myabsolute lifesaver product at the moment. Before I bought this about 3 days ago my lips were so painfull, split and sore and they would be in a horrible state when I woke up in the morning. I Remembered how good blistex is with all its medicated goodness so I ran down to boots and got me some. 2 days later and my lips are back in tip top condition which is good as it means I can now wear lipstick again which is a definate day brightener :) If looking for this make sure you pick up the right one as there are a few different blistexes, but this one in the metal tube is the medicated (lifesaving) one.

What are your illness essentials?

Rachy xxx

Swatch Experiment: Sleek primer palette & mixed eyeshadows

So this is a bit of an experimental post as you can probably guess from the title, and I want it to be as detailed as possible so sorry if it is a little picture heavy! The aim of this post is to make use of some new and old colours I have and mix them together to show myself and you guys.

If you've been reading my blog for a while you may have seen the primer palette post I have already done. In all honesty I wasn't sure on the primer palette for a while and felt a little dissapointed, but now I have returned to it and have been experimenting, and I am putting my initial feelings of dissapointment down to the fact that I wasn't really sure how to make the best use out of the palette.

I noticed that a eyeshadow colours I have (old and new) matched some of the primer colours pretty well so wanted to layer them together to see what I came up with. I was surprised and happy with the result! When layering a matching eyeshadow onto one of the primers, the primer really does work to enhance the colour and make it look more pigmented, and of course increase the lasting power. Here are All the eyeshadows I used:

Here are the swatches:

Left to right: UD oil slick e/s, oil slick over black primer. UD Flash e/s, Flash over purple primer, Mac sushi flower e/s, sushi flower over mix of pink & red primer. UD Uzi, Uzi over silver primer.

Left to right: shimmery yellow sleek e/s, yellow e/s over yellow primer. UD Flipside e/s, Flipside over green primer. Mac Twinks e/s, Twinks over brown primer. Shimmery orange sleek e/s, orange e/s over orange primer.

My favourites Have to be the Urban decay Flipside over the green primer, the colour came out amazingly pigmented and I read in a mag today that that kind of turqoisey/green colour eyeshadow is on trend for spring/summer :) I also love the orange sleek over orange primer...but then I love them all

I hope you can see my reason for doing this post, I wanted to show you (and myself) how the primers can transform an eyeshadow (old or new) into a super pigmented, enhanced version of itsself.

So if you don't have this primer palette yet I reccomended you snap it up and have some fun this spring/summer :)

Rachy xxx

NOTD- 17 crackle top coat- silvery/gold

So I'm sure all you beauty bloggers are aware of the recent crackle nail polish craze, and this post is another installment of that.

I have the Barry M black crackle polish already, you may have seen the NOTD's, and when browsing Boots yesterday I noticed an equally as cheap brand (17) doing a pretty silvery gold crackle polish for just £2.99

As soon as I got home I was dieing to try the polish out, so I painted my nails with a coat of cheap black polish (superdrugs MUA- just £1), covered it with 17's crackle polish then applied a topcoat.

Here is the result:

Ignore the mess around the nails, thats just my poor painting skills..and it has fallen off now and looks neater anyway :)

One thing I did notice about 17's crackle Top coat is that it didn't shrink as much as the Barry M one, leaving smaller gaps between crackles. Of course it's all down the personal preferance but I actually prefer this and think this polish has a neater, prettier effect.

Any of you tried any other crackle polishes?

Rachy

Back 2 Mac- Which lipstick did I choose.....

So I have finally used up my 6 mac items, and went down to Mac this morning to trade for one free lipstick :)

empties: Mac prep+prime eye, 2x plush lash mascara, dazzleglass in smile, 2x spiked brow pencil

So which colour did I go for you ask...

Girl About Town!

I was pretty sure I wanted this shade already as I love my bold lip colours on nights out. Browsing the web to see swatches of G.A.T I found a picture that confirmed my choice...

Kim Kardashian wearing Girl about town, how gorgeous does it look?! There were a handfull of other celebs pictured wearing this lipstick, including Beyonce :)

My very own Girl about town

The light in these pictures isn't the best for showing off jus how bright the lipstick is but hey ho... Girl about town is an amplified lipstick so it's super creamy and packed with colour

Any of you ladies taken advantage of the back 2 Mac scheme yet?

Rachy xxx

Sunset eyes

Sorry about the lack of variation as of late, I'm stuck in a bit of a FOTD rutt at the moment, FOTD's being one of the only thing I can afford to do time-wise as I am coming up to the last week of term at Uni which means alot of work!

However, I have made this FOTD a more interesting one. My friend Kelsey always urges me to be more colourful with my makeup, and my recent purchase of the Sleek peach palette means I can experiment more with brighter colours than the usual nudes.

The look I came up with reminded me of a sunset, hence the title. Here it is:

Eyes: Bobbi brown corrector-porcelain bisque, collection 2000 lasting wear concealer, Sleek peach palette- sandstone (brow bone), blush (inner part of lid), cameo (main part of lid), stone (eyebrows). Mac eyeshadow- Sushi flower (crease)

( I tried to link a pic of the sleek peach palette with name labels from google but it wouldn't let me, so do look it up if you would like to see)

Face: Collecion 2000 lasting wear concealer, Mac cream colour base-Hush

Lips: Mac lipstick- Chatterbox

Rachy xxx