Revolution Ultra Professional collection 2016

In the collection you get three different brushes, two eye brushes and a face brush. The first one you get is the E101, which is a small firm eye brush which works really well in the application of eye shadow. The second eye bush you get is the E103 which is slightly bigger than the 101 and its bristles are much softer so work better for blending. The third brush that you get is the F104, this is a medium powder brush, and its really soft bristle mean it works really well with powders. I also really like the design of the brushes, the rose gold metallic binding on the brush gives it a nice finishing touch.

The Redemption eye shadow palette is another thing that you get in this collection. It contains 12 different shades, ranging from neutral Browns to pinks, purples, blues and greens. The variety of colours that they give you, gives you a countless number of different looks that you can create. Also the pigmentation of its formula make it really easy to work with and blend out. 

Redemption eye shadow palette

Eye primer

The eye primer that comes with these collection is also fairly decent. Its thin consistency means that it is easy to apply in the eyelids and covers all the areas. Upon application it
 appears on more of a fair skin colour, so in my case it helps to brighten up the dull natural shading if my eyes. It does somewhat help to intensify the colour of any eye shadow but not as well as others, still decent for the cost of it.

Eye liner

Another feature of this collection of the revolution liquid eye liner. Although I'm not really one for using eye liners, I do quite like this one. The small too brush that it comes with makes for an easy smooth application. Also the formula of the eye liner means that it dries fairly rapidly. 

Contour Kit

You are also given a contour kit of highlighter, bronzer and blusher. The package that this comes in is rather cool, it has a small thin strip mirror across the top of the inside lid, also each powder has printed into it what it is. Similar to the contour kit you are given a radiant illuminate which is a more subtle way of highlighting the skins natural curves and shape to shine through the makeup, rather then attempting to alter the shape which is what is achieved with contouring. The shimmer to formula gives it a natural finish, so it highlights all the natural areas of the face. 

Amazing lipstick

The final things you get are two lipstick and two lip glosses. With both of these one of them is a neutral kind of colour, were the others is more of a brighter colour. With the lip glosses you get a pink, which is rather bright, as well as more of tinted nude colour, so rather than colouring the lips it adds more of a shine to them. Similarly with the lipsticks you get a brighter colour, which in this case is red, as well as a nude brown.  

Intense lip gloss

I picked this complete collection up from Superdrug for about £16 which was fairly cheap, cheaper than the cost of buying them all separately. Although Revolution is a make up brand that is cheap in price without being cheap in quality, so I would defiantly recommend giving it a try if you haven't, or are simply looking for something new.

If you have tried Revolution makeup before what`s your opinion on it? What are some of your favourite products? 

Glitter calming bottle

Having spent a lot of time lately with my younger sister (she's 7) I've started to realise that a lot of the tactics that people tell you to use when they have a temper tantrum don't actually work. My parents have recently been using the idea of time outs for my sister, but they don't seem to work, she just gets more frustrated and angry. 

So I decided it was time to do some research and came across the concept of a time out bottle, these have been around for a long time and there are some pretty amazing ones out there; so I decided to test this out with a basic one that I made. 

Things you'll need: 

• A plastic bottle with a lid 
• Glitter ( I used pink and gold) 
• Water 

You can also add in other things to make it a bit more creative like food colouring. 

1. Add the glitter into the bottle (it's important that you put this in first because if you don't it's just going to float. 

2. Add the water, I put in enough to fill the bottle, leaving very little room for anything else. 

3. Add the food colouring the food colouring if using, then tightly put the lid back on the bottle and shake it up. (I put some glue on the lid so my sister couldn't open it) 

So what happens? 

After doing a bit of research I found that it offer a lot of benefits:

It helps the child to refocus all of their energy- during tantrums children somewhat lose control, messing around with the bottle and watching the glitter move around helps the body to gain the sensory input needed to organise thoughts and focus attention.

As designed to it helps the child to relax, gives them time to just sit and calm down. Also the bottle gives them something to take their anger out on, so rather than throwing punches they at things that are to squeeze and shake the bottle instead and channel their emotions into it. 


Having tried this out with my sister I found that is quiet effective if it`s brought in at the beginning, it really does help calm her down quicker then what it normally would.

So the concept of calming bottle has been around for a while, there are so many different design ideas out there, this I simple straight forward thing that I created on a whim just to see if it would help and it did. Have you ever tried calming bottles? Have they worked for you?

Reindeer Christmas Cake

Having never really been a fan of the the traditional Christmas fruit cake, this year I tried to do do some more decorative and festive.

For the cake:

250 g of caster sugar
350 g of plain flour
100 g of cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda
1 teaspoon of salt
2 eggs
170 g of vegetable oil
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
230 ml of milk
240 ml of boiling water

For the icing:
300 g of butter
400 g of icing sugar
4 table spoons of cocoa powder
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

For the reindeer decoration:
Your butter cream icing
Red fondant icing
2 white chocolate buttons
2 skewers
300 g of milk chocolate 

Antler Template 
Piping bag and small star nozzle 
Greaseproof paper

Preheat oven to 180 c

1. In a bowl sift together the caster sugar, flour, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt 

2. In a separate bowl, combine the eggs, milk, and water. 

3. Slowly mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until full combined 

4. Add the vanilla extract and the oil. 

5 Separate the mixture in to two greased cake tins. Should take about 15-30 minutes to cook. 
6. Once the cakes are cook set to one side to cool completely before attempting to decorate.

While the cakes cook it is probably the best time to start creating the decorations so that they have enough time fully set. 

7. Melt the milk chocolate in the microwave for a minute (keep checking it). place the antler template underneath some grease proof paper, the fill this out with the melted chocolate. attach a stick to each antler before securing it with more chocolate then leave to harden 
(Be sure to leave half of the stick hanging off the bottom of the antler to secure it into the cake)
you will want to create quite a thick layering of chocolate to strengthen it a little more
8. Place a small dab of the chocolate icing in the centre of the chocolate buttons to form the pupils of the eyes.
9. Roll out a reasonable size ball if the red fondant to later form the nose.

10. While the cakes cool, in a bowl sift together the icing sugar and the cocoa powder, before mixing in the butter to create the icing, once this is all combine add the vanilla extract 

If the mixture feels to stiff try adding a couple of teaspoons of milk

11. Once the cakes are completely cooled spread a small amount of the icing on top of one of the cakes then stack the other on top.
12. Spread a thin layer of icing all around the cake, don`t worry about it being neat the main purpose of this layer is to lock in any stray crumbs. 
13. Place the rest if the icing in a piping bag fitted with a small star nozzle, and ice little stars all the way around the cake until it is completely covered, leave this to set (30-60 minutes to allow the icing to stiffen)
14. Insert the two antlers to the top of the cake pushing them in as far as they will go, firmly push on the eyes and the nose. 
as the nose may be quite weighted, try using a cocktail stick to secure it in place.  

Christmas Cookies

It`s the most wonderful time of the year.... so what better to do then create some Christmas sugar cookies. This is a straightforward simple recipe that helps to create a light cookie that can be decorated up in any way; so it`s not a fixed Christmas thing they can be used for anything.











Things you will need:
380 g of plain flour 

227 g of softened butter 

200 g of granulated sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract 

2 teaspoons of baking powder 

1 egg 

1. Preheat the 175 c

2. In a bowl cream together the butter and the sugar 

3. Mix in the egg and the vanilla extract 

4. Sift in the flour and baking powder, to form a firm dough. (Then leave to cool in the fridge for about 10-20 minutes, so it can firm, this is especially important if you're cutting out shapes) 

5. Empty the dough out on to a floured worktop, then knead the dough with your hands before rolling out. 

6. Cut out the cookies then place them on a greased baking tray, should take about 6-8 minutes to cook. 

7. Leave the cookies to cool before icing. 

8. Enjoy 

Cleaning Make-up Sponge

Make-up sponges are something that I prefer to use when applying make-up, particularly if I`m using a liquid foundation simply because its easier to apply it this way; and I don`t like using brushes with liquid because the bristles of the brush just clump together. y make-up sponge of choice is the real techniques collection and I am really loving them at the moment. Because I use it quite a lot I aim to clean it every day, so this is my quick 4 step process to getting the job done without making a big fuss about it. 

1. I tend to leave mine soak for a little while in make-up remover to help bring out any make-up it may have absorbed 

2. I then squeeze out the make-up remover and absorbed make-up, then run it under a running tap (lukewarm water) 

3. I use a small dot of soap to help get out any make-up that's clinging to it (I only use a little bit because too much and the soap just gets absorbed and becomes a pain to get out) 

4.  I then just rinse all the soap out of the sponge and leave it to dry out. 

I prefer to wash the sponge out at night that way it's still damp in the morning when I need to use it again 

Real Techniques

I decided it was time to go out and buy some new makeup brushes, my friend has been raving at me about the Real Techniques collection, although I already use some of their brushes such as the E301 eye brush. I decided that I was impressed with this brush and had enough of my friend nagging me that it was time to try some of their other brushes. 

So I went out and picked up the real techniques core collection set which has 4 brush and a nice little Panoramic carrier case for them which can be turned into a stand to hold the brushes while you work and helps keep it more organise. At first glance they seem like really good brushes and are nice and soft. 

 

The first brush you get is the pointed foundation brush, which according to the packaging is good to use with liquid foundation to build up custom coverage. Personally, I prefer to use it to work in my concealer rather than any of the liquid foundations; as I find that the flat brush shape makes it perfect for getting the awkward areas like under the eyes.

 

The second brush you get is their buffering brush, which according to the package is ideal for the full application of powder and mineral foundation. Which I found did work really well with most powders, it was really good powder foundations as well as things like bronzers and blushes, as it helped to build up the powders to whatever intensity you want.



 

The third brush you get is the detailer brush, which according to the packaging is precision cut to effortlessly conceal problem areas; or use with lipstick for long lasting shape and definition. Although the fact that it`s tiny means that it is good for sharpening up the finish to lips; it also means that I very quickly can become overpowered by lipstick and clumps together.

The final brush that you get is the contour brush, which delicately applies highlighter to contour or create sheer, soft focus finish. I do like to use this brush for what it suggests as its shape means that it doesn't pick up a lot of powder, so I can gradually build up my look.










Overall, I'm just really loving this Real Techniques collection, they are by far some of the most amazing makeup brushes that I have used, I also like to use the Real Technique makeup sponge for liquid foundations I just find that it works better then brushes. I managed to pick these up for like £14 so they are reasonably cheap for some good quality brushes, I would definitely recommend getting some if you have the chance, and they are available at a lot of different stores including Superdrug and boots.

 

Revlon Colorburst Matte Balm Stain

This is the Revlon matte lip balm that I picked up on my last shopping trip, I bought from Superdrug for £7.99 which I thought was reasonably cheap and I just couldn't decide which colour I liked so I decide to buy three (I believe there are 10 different shades available) just because they were cheap enough to do so.

The lip balm comes in a plastic tube with a click on lid, the design of the lip balm appears like a chunky pencil, this makes the application of it much easier and quicker, although you may need to use a small brush to neaten up the edges and ensure that you cover the 'corners' of the mouth without getting it on the skin. 

240 Striking

The first one that I picked up was the 240 in the shade Striking, which is a really bright red. As a shade it appeared very bold, the beauty of this one is that as the colour is so "striking" as it is so rightly named, it manages to keep its colour all night in my case.

205 Elusive

 

Elusive as a shade was really good, it was more of naturally appears pink, so rather than looking over the top it more highlighted a natural lip colour. Which is why I tend to wear it quite a lot as I believe it`s a nice finishing touch to a natural look. As this one is more of balm formula it appears a little bit glossier then the others, however it`s not really significant enough to affect the staying power.

210 Unapologetic

 The second one I picked up was the 210 Unapologetic, this was more of a bright pink shade almost like a step up from the shade Elusive as it`s the same kind of pink just a lot brighter.

 

Overall I'm really impressed with the Revlon matte lip balm range and will definitely be investing in some more. I find that the fact it's a lip balm rather than a lipstick makes it much easier to work with as the formula seems almost more buttery so it's makes the application all that much easier. The consistency of the lip balm means that you don't really need to wear anything underneath or even really bother with a lip liner. Also it has reasonably good staying power due to the fact that it's a lip stain formula, I found that it tended to last for several hours before it might need topping up, even after this it just faded out and become more neutral to what it is when you first apply it. But I would definitely recommend it, with the variety of shades that are available it would easily be able to complete any look.

Have you had chance to try them? I`d love to know your thoughts, let me know in the comments section what you think of the Revlon Colourburst Matte Balm Stain

Collection Eyes Uncovered Palette in Nude Bronze

 

This is a little gem that I have recently been loving, collection created the eyes uncovered palette earlier this year and have 3 variety of the collection. I have recently been using the nude bronze palette and I'm immensely impressed with it so far.

The palette comes with 6 different eyeshadow shades, the nude bronze collection that has the colours: Ivory, Mink, Ochre, Golden Brown, Ember and Nutty.


The variety of shades creates an endless possibility for looks that can created. The product itself comes in a small cardboard palette which is compact enough to carry in any makeup case without causing a mess. It also comes with a small sponge eye brush, which in my opinion isn't all that good I prefer to use my revolution E301 eye brush; although the brush it comes with may be good if you're a beginner just getting used to eye makeup, or are just wanting to experiment with different looks.

I find that the nude bronze palette is best suited to me as the shades are warmer which suits my place skin better. I also find that it seems more pigmented in its formula, so it just seems easier to work with and blends better, so you can create a variety of looks easily. 

Overall I'm really impressed with the collection eye uncovered collection, I would definitely recommend it and it's available from most drugstores including Boots and Superdrug for around £3.99. So it's a much cheaper alternative to high end products without skimping on the quality.
                                                             

 

Outfit Of The Day

So it’s the annoying time of year where it’s absolutely freezing cold outside so wrapping up is a must before going out, however here in the UK this is a problem if you’re going shopping as the minute you walk into any shop the heat just becomes so over powering it’s nearly impossible to battle with; particularly if you’re in the shop for a long time.




So this is my attempt to put together a simple outfit that I`d be able to cope in (turned out ok, was cool enough to not overheat in the shops but didn't work out very well with the cold so had to add a coat haha...)




















So to start it off I had a very simple beige crop top jumper the I picked up fairly cheaply from Boohoo (http://www.boohoo.com/)













I then paired this off with a pair of high-waisted skinny jeans which again where from Boohoo (http://www.boohoo.com/) (I had a mini splurge session on the website...) but I find that their jeans are actually a really good, as normally I struggle to find jeans that fit properly everywhere because of my body shape.

To finish the look off I went with lace up black boots, because they're really comfy and warm because they are fleece lined. These were a spur of the moment purchase from Wynsor World of Shoes (http://www.wynsors.com/), as I found myself in the terrible weather with the wrong kind of shoes, but they turned out to be a pretty decent purchase.










That completes my almost winter ready look, I kept it rather casual as I didn't really feel like putting that much of an effort in but still wanted to try and look ok, although I did end up having to also wear my coat because it was just so cold. Let me know in the comment section what you think? What's your go to winter wear?

Everyday Eye Blend

To complete my everyday look for eye makeup I simply use my Collection Eyes Uncovered Palette in Nude Bronze, and Mascara to help keep more of a natural appears to the makeup.

1. First I create a base layer of eyeshadow, I tend to use the colour Ivory, mainly because I'm cursed with having dark eyes so the ivory base helps to even eye the skin colour blend out the darker colours I put on.

2. Mainly to the middle I add in a lighter brown, which in the collection palette is the colour Ember and add the shade Nutty to the end of my eyes before blending it all inwards to create more of a natural colouring to the eyes which can be as intense of minimal as desired.

3. To finish of the look I add a thin layer of Mascara to my eyelashes to help them look fuller and define the smaller ones just a little bit more, at the minute I'm really liking the Rimmel Wake Me Up mascara as its good at creating the long dark look without clumping the lashes together or requiring a thick coating.

So that's my 3 step guide to a very simple quick and easy eye blend that looks natural. What's your everyday go to look for eye makeup? 

Knot Hair Updo (long hair)

This is a quick simple hair style that can be dressed up or altered to suit almost any occasion, it`s also a good style for keeping all your hair up and in place, which can be rather difficult when you have really long hair as with most hairstyles it doesn't hold.







1. Gather all the hair at the back and comb through, doesn't necessarily matter what state the hair is in with this style (e.g. it doesn't have to be perfectly straight for this to work.)












2. Tie the hair up in a ponytail, securing it with a hair band, it can be as high or low as you want it (for more of a sophisticated businesses kind of look I`d probably keep it reasonably low.)











3. Starting from the top twist the hair round until it is all tightly twisted together.









4. Wrap the twisted ponytail top of itself until it forms the bun, I tend to secure it with another hair band because its better at keeping it in place as I have really long hair which is quite heavy, so if I was to use a hair grip it wouldn't really hold it very well.








5. Lastly, I spray a small amount of hairspray just to secure the stupid little baby hairs, however if you`re going for more of a messy looked you could just leave them.






So that's it my simple 5 step guide to create a knot bun for really long hair, you can really easily dress it up by adding in a nice floral headband of some decorative hairgrips.

Chocolate Slab Cake

This is possibly one of the quickest and cheapest ways I have found of making a chocolate that tastes amazing without the need for expensive ingredients, made with simple ingredients found in most home kitchens.

Things you'll need:

Cake-

150g of self-raising flour 

150g of caster sugar 

75g of cocoa powder 

250ml of water 

2 tsp of oil 

Icing-

150g of icing sugar 

30g of cocoa powder 

150g of butter

1/2 tsp of oil 

1. Pre-heat the oven to 150*c 

2. Combine the flour, caster sugar and coco powder together, then mix in the oil and water. 

3. Once the batter is fully combined and lump free, pour it in a cake tin (doesn't really matter which one I used 11" by 7" rectangle cake tin), then place in over for 20-40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. 

4. While the cake cools, mix the icing sugar, butter and oil together to form the butter icing. 

5. Once the cake is completely cooled, lather the chocolate icing on top and enjoy.  

How to keep entertained while traveling

I spend a lot of time travelling particularly on trains, this sometimes lead to the unfortunate problem that I found myself in just a few days ago of being stuck because I missed my train :-( so I had to wait around for two hours until my next train. This got me thinking about ways to stay entertained while travelling, especially when in the situation of waiting for trains or long journeys; here's a few things that I came up with/do:

• Read a book- I find this one of the best past times as I have a lot of books that I want to read ( I am currently reading All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven) 

• Do some work- I normally spend a lot of time on trains, these days most of them have Wi-Fi so I tend to take my laptop with me and finish off whatever work it that I need to do.

• Watch Netflix- catch up on some TV or binge watch some TV episodes to pass the time, most trains come with free Wi-Fi giving the perfect opportunity to watch an unhealthy amount of TV.

• Listen to music- I have a playlist with a variety of different music ranging from Taylor Swift to Nickelback to keep me entertained. 

• Sleep- if you've got a few hours what better way to spend it then by just having a nice long nap

• Travel with someone- traveling with people is always better then travelling alone because then you have someone to keep you company and entertain you.

• TALK TO SOMEONE- this is a big one because we now live in a world where everyone is so glued to things such as their phones that people rarely ever talk to each other, but if you`re going to be sat next to someone for a few hours then why not have a chat.

So those are some of the little things that have kept me occupied during my many hours of daily travel, what`s some of the things you do when you have go on your travels?