A nourishing lip pick is the perfect summer lip option if you're after something that is light and moisturisers the lips well. They also work well in creating that more softer look throughout the lighter and warmer months of the year, whilst you can opt for something more heavy and bold come winter time. I've gathered together a selection of some of my favourite nourishing lip options within my lip wardrobe:

When you're a makeup hoarder or addict, you will probably end up finding yourself building quite the collection. It can be hard sometimes to find the time to use all of the products you have seemed to accumulate over a certain period of time or even let go of using your favourites on a daily basis. I know I personally feel like some of my makeup products get neglected, so if you ever find yourself in this situation, then keep on reading because this post is going to help you get lot's more wear out of your makeup collection:

Haircare is such an important part of your beauty regime that sometimes can be forgotten about if you're not caring for it daily. I find it is especially more important in the summer time, when you're exposed to the humidity and heat a lot more than usual. Also some of us love to go lighter in the summer, which means a lot of damage being caused by bleaching. Instead of letting our haircare slide, it's a good idea to find a good routine or even some great products that work wonders on your hair. I'm sharing with you 5 ways to better hair care that you can start straight away:

Glowy and radiant skin is something I aim for pretty much all year round. It's my favourite finish to a makeup look and the one I find suits me the best. As the warmer season of the year comes round, a lot more of us support a glowy and radiant look to our makeup. Sometimes it can seem quite daunting to try achieve this look without looking like you've either plastered your face in glitter or being overly oily or sweaty. So I thought it would be best that I share some of my own methods and some useful tips of achieving a radiant and healthy look. 

Before you do anything, ensure you're starting with clear and clean skin. This will help to not only hold your makeup in place, which is essential with the heat in the summer, but also ensures you can get as much benefit from your makeup products as possible. It's also a good idea to apply a primer before you apply your makeup to help minimize fine lines and pores, as well as to help smooth the skin ready to go in with your products.

Starting with foundation, everyone has their own individual preferences of what their favourite go to brands are, as well as the type and finish they opt for. If you want to achieve a radiant look, you're obviously going to want to sway more to the dewy side of foundations. Something that gives you a nice glow. My personal favourite is Rimmel's Wake Me Up Foundation. This creates a gorgeous radiant and glow to the skin, whilst giving a good medium coverage that looks super natural. It really does help to wake up your skin and make it look healthy. Alternatively, you could go for a lighter base, like a bb cream or a tinted moisturiser to produce the same look to your skin.

In terms of concealer, something that is really going to help brighten up your under eye area is a good shout. This will help to make you look more awake and radiant, concealing those dull areas. Seventeen's Stay Time concealer is a great budget friendly option to achieve this. If you want to conceal any blemishes or spots, then use a concealer correcting palette or a concealer you know will give you a good enough coverage to create that seamless healthy look to your skin.

Moving onto my favourite part of the achieving a glowy makeup look is highlight! Now you need to be careful with this one, because no one wants to look like a disco ball due to too much highlight. Instead make sure you are aware of how intense you want your highlight to be and that it doesn't look too over the top with the rest of your look. I like to apply a subtle cream highlight over my cheek bones, my cupids bow, my chin, my brow bone and down the bridge of my nose, before going in with a powder highlight over these areas to build that intensity. Ensure you go for highlighter shades that work well for your skin tone. Gold tones work best at adding more of a glow than frost tones. If you have dry skin, opt for a liquid highlight to prevent any dry patches being highlighted.

It's also good that when you're using bronzer to ensure you're using one that goes well with your skin tone too. You want it to look as natural as possible. Bronzed skin can really help to make you look healthy and radiant so along with the other steps this can really help bring it together. Go for something that's not too shimmery or too matte. You want something that is going to give you sun kissed skin!

You can also add a blush on top of your cheeks for a light flush of colour to really bring in that healthy glow. But again ensure it's not too shimmery as you want it to look natural and leave the highlight to be doing all the popping against that light.

Other ways you can achieve a glowy and radiant look with other aspects of your makeup is using creamy yet neutral eye shadows on your lids. Colours like pinks and golds will really help to highlight the eyes and keep things natural. Also going for a mascara wand that really helps to open up your lashes all whilst looking super natural. You could also go for something soft and well moisturised on the lip, like a lip crayon or a cream finish lipstick. This will really compliment the rest of your glowy look and keep things as toned down as possible, whilst drawing all the attention to your healthy radiance. 

How do you like to achieve a glowy makeup look?

Lauren x

Bloglovin | Instagram | Twitter | Pinterest | 

This post contains affiliate links. 

Doing my makeup is one of my favourite things ever. Gone are the days in my early teen years when I use to see it as a chore. Now I absolutely love it when I'm getting ready and testing out new products and different looks. I could spend hours playing around with it all. Although this isn't always the case, especially the days when you're in rush and don't have the time to waste experimenting, which also means any mistakes need to be avoided at all costs. There are somethings I like to do to try help make my makeup routine easier..

1. Clean brushes - Using clean makeup brushes when carrying out my makeup routine makes a huge difference in the way my makeup applies and also sits on my skin. Even though I should probably clean them a lot more regularly than I do, (I mean, who can be bothered sometimes?! It's the worst beauty chore, am I right?) I do notice that when my brushes aren't full of product, I can really use them to their full advantage. Clean brushes also help to contribute to keeping your skin dirt free, so it's a must in my makeup routine I need to do more often than not.

2. Eyelash curlers - I can't be without this tool! Curling my lashes before applying mascara really does help to prep my lashes. They really help to add volume and curl, really helping to lift my lashes and make the mascara application a hell lot easier also.

3. Good lighting - There's nothing worse than doing your makeup in the dark or in rubbish lighting. Come winter time that is one huge struggle we can all relate to with the darker mornings and less sunlight during the day. Ensure you get close to a big window that lets in lots of light. This will also give you a good idea of how your makeup will look throughout the day in the natural lighting outside. You could also invest in a cosmetic l.e.d mirror like this super affordable one from No7 to help reduce glare. 

4. A clean base - I will hold my hand up high and admit that I have gone out before with makeup on without doing my skin first, I mean who hasn't to be honest? But as I've delved more into the whole skincare malarky I've really good to terms with how important it is in general, but also for preparing your skin for makeup. A clean and prepped base is easier to work with, making your products easier to apply and blend onto your face. It also means your skin will feel fresh and lovely ready for your to apply product onto that sometimes can be heavy if you're not careful. Also it's good to let your skincare products a little bit of time (5/10 minutes) to sink into the skin and work, especially those like your moisturiser and primer, which will help your makeup to last longer throughout the day. I have a whole post here on making your makeup last longer if you fancy a read.  

5. Tape for eye shadows - When I started to take eyeshadows more seriously earlier on this year, tape was my best friend for helping me to create a neat eye look. If you're a newbie or find you struggle, then applying some tape under your eye towards the outer corner can really help you to get more precise with your application. It will help to create a clean and cut look to your shadow. It's also useful for any fall out that you might experience. 

What makes your makeup routine easier?

Lauren x

Bloglovin | Instagram | Twitter | Pinterest |

Highlighting palettes seem to be everywhere across the drugstore right now, giving us the opportunity to create a glowing  and healthy finish to our skin, which is absolutely perfect for the summer months ahead. I've got quite a few palettes within my collection that I'm always reaching for that have a range of wearable shades. I thought I would share with you 3 affordable highlighting palettes that you must check out the next time you're wandering  down the high street. 

One of the most exciting things about being an enthusiast of all things beauty is that you get to try out so many different products from a range of different areas, like makeup or skincare. I'm always on the hunt for new skincare products and testing out new ones to find the ones that work well for me. This also means I like to go for something that is also affordable, because let's face it when you love trying out different products all the time, it can rack up quite the expense. 

Anatomicals are a brand I got introduced to through Instagram and spotted over on ASOS. Their fun and quirky themed products really enticed me in and I just couldn't help myself but want to know more. They kindly sent over a more than generous PR package with a mixture of skincare products a and also some cute little lip balms for me to try. Over the past few weeks, I've been trialing these Anatomical goodies and I'm going to share my views in today's post.

Do you ever get those moments when doing your makeup or carrying out your beauty routine where you just feel like you wish you could be better at doing something? It's not that your terrible (I am actually at winged liner...), it's more that you can't perfect it like most people do or you struggle with your application, but can just about get away with the finished results. I thought it would be fun to share some of those beauty things I wish I was a lot better at and for you guys to see if any of them are similiar to the things you struggle with too. I'm sure there's going to be at least one!

Is it just me or is anyone else super excited to be swapping their dark winter hues for more fresh and light spring picks? Nail's are always the one place I start when it comes to changing up my colour choices as we move through the seasons. I love spring. You'll probably have gathered that if you've been reading my blog for a while, but if not you will soon find out with the new exciting spring content coming your way over the next couple of months. Because of my love for spring, I've got lots of gorgeous shades within my nail polish collection that I'm going to be reaching for over the course of the next few months that I can't wait to share with you!

Building a makeup collection can be something that happens unintentionally overtime to any beauty or makeup lover out there.  Not only does it take time to achieve a collection that you absolutely love, but it also means dedicating your own money to funding your collection and putting the effort in to actually experiment with a range of products, to eventually find the ones that are going to stick with you. Here are some of my top tips for building a makeup collection based on my own experiences.

Buy products you actually want to buy - When it comes to investing money into makeup products and trialing out different ones, it can be easy to fall into the trap of buying only hyped about products or those that someone has recommended to you. Of course this is fine and I personally appreciate it when people do recommend genuine great products to me, but if you're just buying a product to please someone else or to have all the popular products everyone else has got, then you're building a collection of products you're probably not even going to really like. Instead buy what you want, rather than what you feel like you have to own. 

Give yourself a budget and stick to it - As you are probably aware, buying makeup can be expensive and creating a collection you love will be pricey. But instead of having to worry about how you're going to afford things, make yourself an affordable budget that works for you. Do your research before hand. Look out for more affordable dupes of expensive items you have your eye on and find out whether the majority like a product enough to buy it again. Also consider that if you do want to splurge on a higher priced item, then save up as much as you can before doing so. Or go for cheaper yet good quality products that work as well as the more expensive ones.

Be practical with yourself - Know what is and what isn't worth the investment. Consider what items you can save some money on and what items you can spend more on. Products like mascara, brow products, concealer and liners will be used up more quickly, so you'll probably want to aim to spend less on these. The products that are more worth spending on include lipsticks, shadows, brushes and foundations (only if you don't wear foundation every single day.). 

Invest in some good storage - With a growing collection, it's a good idea to invest in some storage to keep all your makeup products organised and well looked after. You want somethings that provides ease of access if you wear makeup a lot, because no doubt you'll always need to be in reach of it in your daily routine. This will also help to make it easier to get ready. If you're someone who wants to have your makeup on display so you can admire it, then perhaps invest in something that shows your collection off to it's full advantage and goes well with the rest of your room decor. I have 7 makeup storage ideas here if you need some further ideas and help. 

Have patience - Building a makeup collection that you 100% love takes time. You need to be patient with yourself. Don't splurge on a load of items at once and instead consider that budget you have in mind. Alternatively, remember to save and spend on those worthwhile items that won't end up going to waste. It isn't going to happen over night or even a weeks time, it will  probably take several months and maybe even years to get to where you aim to be.

Don't compare your size to someone else's - Everyone's makeup collections will be different. Not everyone's will have the same products or the same size. We all have to start somewhere. Some people prefer a minimalistic small collection of products they really love and get a lot of wear out of all of them. Whilst other people like to build a huge collection up and are able to provide themselves with a greater choice of products from their collection. For me personally, I'm somewhere in the middle. I'm practical with my purchases and only purchase items I need, but I do like to have a splurge on a random item or two from time to time. It is always nice to treat yourself!

Experiment with it - I touched briefly on this area and highlighted that it is important to be patient when you're building a makeup collection. You're going to be experimenting with different products for quite some time. Most products take a good couple of weeks for you to trial and test out, so you can see why it can become time consuming. But experimenting is definitely worth it since it will help you to find those products that you love and ones that actually work best for you. It's also a good idea to have a clear out every so often, to ensure you're getting rid of any unused or unloved products, which you can donate to friends or family. This will make way for new products.

Apply the one of each rule - If you solidly want to build a collection and be organised with it, then sticking to the one of each rule is essential. First start with gathering up the basics to create a full face of makeup that you can wear on a day to day basis. Remember these need to be ones you 100% love and will use a lot. Then you can move onto trying out new products and building your collection from your basics. Take into consideration the types of formulas and finishes you have in your collection, for example you might have one foundation that provides a full coverage with a matte finish and then an additional foundation you could add to your collection to build it could be one of a more dewy natural coverage. 

How have you built your own makeup collection?

Lauren x

Bloglovin | Instagram | Twitter | Pinterest |