Top 5 | Blushes for Autumn/Winter.

I know, I KNOW. I pretty much fell off the face of the earth this past week or so.. I'm so sorry! I moved into a new house on the other side of the country, started back for my second year of college last week and had a friend staying with me all weekend so I had zero time to blog. That, and I've had 2 novels and 19th Century French poetry to deal with since last week. I'm hoping I'm now back into a semi regular blogging schedule again. I'm finding it difficult to balance that and college, but I'll make it work! Anyway, onto the good stuff... blush! I did a post on my top blushes for spring/summer and decided I would do one for autumn/winter too. I tend to go for more muted tones on my cheeks at this time, and go for a heavy contour and highlight. With it being the season for dark lips, however, I still think it's important to have some bit of colour on the cheeks, to stop your face from looking very washed out.

FOTD/Get Ready With Me | Anniversary Dinner.

Hi everyone! My last Get Ready With Me style post seemed to be a pretty popular one so I thought I'd do another! I think they're quite nice to do for special occasions or events where you're putting a good bit of thought into your whole outfit and look. My last GRWM (link here) was for a college ball and so was pretty formal. This time round, I decided to do one for my 1 year anniversary dinner with my boyfriend. I had taken pictures of only my makeup and jewellery that night, because I didn't originally have the intentions of doing a GRWM post. I have no photos of the 2 of us, or the ridiculously good Italian food and cheesecake/gelato we ate which is ultimate sad face. I took pictures of the details of the dress and accessories the next day, so I'll definitely have to plan it better next time round if I had have been thinking. It'll be a wedding anniversary before I ever get around to planning anything half decently realistically. Butttt, because this is mostly a beauty blog, I figured the makeup was the most important thing really wasn't it?

FOTD/Step by Step How To | Urban Chaos (Urban Decay Electric Palette).

I have been dying to get properly stuck into the Urban Decay Electric Palette since I got it last month. I had no time to sit down and play with makeup between moving my stuff from Dundalk to Galway, but I finally got a chance to throw some of the colours on my eyes and this is what I came up with. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out - it reminds me of a (radioactive) peacock. Blues and purples are colours I love to wear together, and I decided last minute to include the pop of yellow/green in the inner corner. The lid almost reminds me of a water colour with the blues and purples merging into one, so I opted to skip out on winged liner because I thought it would make it slightly more 'harsh' and almost graphic looking. That being said, you could definitely choose to add wings if you feel a little naked without them like I often do! I paired this with subtle highlighting, a pink blush and some nude lips. I have a review with swatches of the Electric Palette here and a slightly more neutral FOTD using it here if you're interested in seeing more of this palette :)

That Thrash colour is insaaaaaaaane - it just glows!

Mini Reviews | 5 Products I've Used Up (Empties #1)

Before I get into this post, I have to apologize for slacking on blog posts since coming home from France. I hate making excuses, but I'd been super busy showing my friend around Galway and Dublin for the week, then travelling back up to Galway for house related/moving/college things and finally trying to see all of my friends from home before we go our separate ways for the college year again - phew. I thought it would be easier to fit blogging into that schedule but I was mistaken, I'll be much more prepared next time. It killed me not being able to blog for a little over a week!
In any case, this is my first ever Empties style post... I'm not sure how enjoyable they are to everyone else but I find them incredibly useful. The concept is a little weird, basically looking into the contents of someone's beauty bin but Empties posts are a great way to get an idea of someone's fully formed opinion on a used up product. Most importantly, you get to know if the person would buy it again... and sure isn't that the main thing?! I've decided to keep it to 5 products to try and make this post somewhat short and sweet.

France Haul: Makeup & Skincare | Kiko, Sephora, Yves Rocher.

Although I personally like to watch/read haul type posts, I know they're not for everyone. That being said, I thought I would lump all the things I purchased on my trip here, because a lot of these are brands and items you can't necessarily get easily in Ireland. I always think it's interesting to see the makeup and skincare bits people pick up when they're abroad and gives me an idea of things I might want to purchase on future trips! I picked up quite a few things from Kiko and included swatches because Kiko is something that's a little easier to get if you live in England or are travelling around Italy, Portugal, France, Spain. In addition to that, I think a haul is the only real way to show you these things... I'd be here for years reviewing everything singularly! ;) You'll all be happy to know that my french makeup vocabulary has improved significantly!

The bottomless pit of makeup and skin care goodness!

FOTD - Naked Freak | Electric Palette Tutorial.

Okay, so I know I said I'd wait until I got home from France to do tutorials with the Electric Palette but uhmmmm, that didn't really happen. I've played around with it a little since I got it, but want to wait until I'm home (to the comfort of false lashes etc) to do some reaaally bright looks. So, wanting to keep it (slightly, only very slightly) more netural, I came up with this. I kept the crease brown and used a pop of colour on the lid and the lower lashline. I think the neutral crease makes it a little more wearable but ultimately it's still quite bright. I included one picture in the pictorial of a really neutral look I did, using the Electric Palette only on the lower lashline. I didn't take any other photos of that look, and it's so simple that I didn't think it would warrant an entire post but I thought I would throw it in here anyway because it's using the same 2 palettes (Naked Basics and Electric Palette) as my other look. The only difference is I swapped the bright lid for a neutral, matte cream colour.

I (obviously) don't have false lashes on in this FOTD, and if you follow me on Twitter, you'll know that I lost my lash curlers whilst on the trip. It was pretty traumatic, but I've since bought a different pair so the republic still stands and the earth has started turning again. Basically, excuse the state of my lashes and I hope you enjoy the face of the day! If you want to see my review on the palette, with my overall thoughts and swatches then click here :)

Top 10: Permanent MAC Lipsticks.

As a follow up post to my Top 10 MAC Eyeshadows post (link here), I thought I'd talk about one of my favourite things in makeup/life; lipstick. Unlike their eyeshadows, I think MAC do some of the best lipsticks around... especially for the not crazily luxury style price. These are the traditional bullet style MAC lipsticks, which people are probably more familiar with. They also do smaller ranges (Pro Longwear, Mattene and Mineralise to name a few) but I wanted to focus on their standard lipsticks because they're my absolute favourite. They have a whole host of different finishes (glaze, frost, lustre, cremesheen, amplified, satin, matte, retro matte) and a massive range of colours - I'd find it hard to believe you couldn't find something you liked with so much choice. I wanted to include a good range of nudes, reds, pinks, purples and deeper shades in this post. These are my personal favourite lipsticks that MAC offers.. most of them are all time favourites and 1 or 2 have been current favourites for a little while now. Don't forget that MAC offer the Back 2 MAC recycling programme, whereby you can bring back any 6 glass or plastic MAC containers/products when you're finished with them and get a free lipstick... and who doesn't love free lipstick?!

Get Electric | Urban Decay Electric Palette + Swatches.

I thought I would do a (sort of?) in-depth post on the Urban Decay Electric Palette that I got in Sephora the other day (I was super bold and bought "un cadeau pour moi-meme" but I wanted it for ages so whateverrrr). I've only just bought it but I think with eyeshadows you can often get a pretty good idea about how you feel about it from swatches and first use etc, unlike a foundation or mascara. I have only used these shadows on my eyes once, at 1am whilst playing around with the palette in my room. I actually did 2 different looks on each eye to try out as many shades as possible and come up with some looks with the palette. I ended up using all of them except Jilted!
I want to share swatches and my overall thoughts on this palette and the shades with you guys, because it isn't like a Naked palette where everyone is gonna run out and grab it for everyday use. That being said, there has been a lot of mention about this palette online already... probably unnecessary, but I thought I'd add to the mention ;) I will be doing lots of FOTD posts with this baby when I get home from France... I think that showing you the palette in use will be the true test as to how much I like it. I have done a FOTD inspired by an Electric Palette face chart which I will link here :)

On an only very slightly related note, I'm (of course) going back to Sephora before I leave France. Unfortunately, European Sephoras don't have all the same brands as the US one. However, if you have any Makeup Forever or Sephora product recommendations that I should try in particular then I would really really appreciate it. Also, Sephora FR has started to sell Formula X nail polishes. I've seen every American blogger talking about them and I'd love to know if any of my American (or French) readers have any shades that I should try. Merci beaucoup! :D

This picture makes me go all heart eyes emoji

Top 10: Permanent MAC Eyeshadows.

I'm currently sitting out on a back garden patio in the french countryside on a beautiful Thursday evening tapping and typing at my laptop - oh, I missed France! Anyway, enough of that... MAC. MAC are kinda one of those brands that a lot of people think it's the end all be all of brands.. and for certain products, in my opinion, it is. If you ask any man on the street (or my boyfriend) to name any makeup brand I'm pretty sure the first one he'd mutter would be MAC. I'm probably not alone in saying that as a makeup lover, I get asked a lot of questions from friends and family about "the best MAC this or that" ... which can be frustrating because even though I love the brand, there are other companies out there making better products! Nonetheless, I thought that it would be a helpful post to refer back to if you're thinking of buying a couple of good quality, key MAC shades or building a quad/palette for yourself. MAC eyeshadows aren't the cheapest and I think people are always kinda interested in knowing someones MAC favourites be it lipsticks, blush or eyeshadow so, here are mine!

I have to stress that MAC are definitely not my favourite brand for eyeshadows, but they do make some of my favourite eyeshadows... does that make sense? Overall, I think MAC could do a lot better in terms of quality.. especially with other brands like Inglot producing incredible shadows. That being said, there are MAC gems among several misses that I would repurchase again and are some of my most used and well loved shadows. Honestly, I haven't bought a new MAC eyeshadow in ages because they just don't interest me too much anymore. If I ever feature MAC shadows in my FOTD's etc, they're usually always the same colours! In terms of shades, I don't think that this is the most exciting colour palette and the reason for that is because I think MAC do neutrals very, very well! Their bright colours could use a lot of work (and a lot of NYX Milk Jumbo Pencil) but they make great bronze/brown shades. If you're a beginner and wondering what shades to put in your palette, realistically these are probably the shades you're going to reach for most. With all that said, I wanted to include 1 or 2 brighter colours that I think are great and can be incorporated into a lot of different looks - even neutral ones. Some of these are cult classic MAC shades, and some I don't see mentioned too often among favourites (I honestly have no idea why!) All of these shades are permanent and can be purchased at a MAC counter/store any time of year... I wouldn't be that mean and include limited editions! ;) All shades were swatched with no primer, in case you were wonderin'