Rachel Sarah XO: December 2014

Girl Panic is a newish palette from Makeup Revolution. Makeup Revolution are the new budget beauty brand on the block and let me tell you, their palette's are simply incredible.

Obviously I bought Girl Panic because I thought the name was very fitting (just call me a comedian), but also because quite obviously whoever names these palettes are huge Duran Duran fans. (Girl Panic and Girls on Film are both Duran Duran songs, beeteedubz.)

I love this palette because I'm very much into my red/pink tones lately, it's rare that you find a palette with tones like that in drugstore priced palette. The thing that kicked off this craze for me was seeing Lime Crime's Venus palette. I for one cannot justify spending £40+ on 8 matte shades, I'm a shimmer girl through and through. I can however justify spending £6 on 18 shades, which how much this palette was.

So the deal with the Salvation palettes is that there two rows of 6 shadows, and they're all shimmer shades and a row of 6 on the bottom (which weirdly resemble the shadows in Sleek palettes) and they're matte shades.

Can we just... How pigmented?! I've always been a fan of MUA palettes, but Make Up Revolution are in a whole other ball park in terms of pigmentation. And you get loads more shades for only £2 more. I find some eyeshadows in cheaper palettes to be quite clumpy and there's always fall out but that's not the case with this palette. The shadows are so blendable and there's been no fall out as of yet (yey!)

My one only miniscule gripe is probably that the first three matte shades are just far too similar, but that's the only thing I don't like.

I've also bought one of their blush palettes (you get 8 blush shades in a palette for £6, help this brand is just too much.) Do expect a review soon because it's fab.

Makeup Revolution products are available in selected Superdrug stores, or you can buy their products from their website or online at Superdrug.

I will definitely be placing another order from them very soon as I'm totally obsessed.

Let me know if you've tried any Makeup Revolution products and if so, what would you recommend?

That's all for now,
Rachel. xo

18:28 8 comments

Hey guys!

So it's been a while since I've done a favourite lipsticks post, and it's changed quite a lot as my lipstick collection has grown, I'm up to nearly 35, so these are the best of the best in my opinion.

(L to R: '04' by Rimmel Kate Moss, Heroine by MAC, Flat Out Fabulous by MAC, Diva by MAC, Rebel by MAC, Pink Nude by Rimmel, Blake's Red by L'Oreal, Atomic Serpent by Make Up Revolution, '107' by Rimmel Kate Moss, '110' by Rimmel Kate Moss.)

This lipstick is in shade '04' and it's from the Kate Moss collection by Rimmel, it's a gorgeous dark blue toned purple, almost navy blue. It's a satin finish but a very slippery satin finish (which isn't really what you want with a lipstick this dark) but a bit of translucent powder fixes that no bother. I think if this shade was in their matte range, I'd love it a billion times more.

The colour is so perfect, it had to be in my top 10.

RRP: £5.49 and can be bought here

This lipstick is by MAC and it's in the shade 'Heroine', it's a gorgeous true purple in a lovely matte finish. When it comes to MAC lipsticks, matte finishes are my favourite. It's my favourite lipstick to wear all year round, because it's so bright it's really nice in summer but then because it's purple, it's a lovely called for autumn and winter.

RRP: £15.50 and can be bought here

This lipstick is also by MAC, it's in the shade 'Flat Out Fabulous', and it's also in a matte finish (you'll notice a theme appearing)

I only got this lipstick for Christmas, a couple of days ago and it's already a new favourite, before this, Candy Yum Yum by MAC was my favourite matte pink, but it's just too neon. This a bit darker and less in your face.

RRP: £15.50 and can be bought here

Oh shock horror! Another matte MAC lipstick

(I can't stop, I'm obsessed.) This is my all time favourite red lipstick, it's in the shade 'Diva' and it's a very dark brown toned burgundy shade. It's a gorgeous lipstick for autumn/winter, but I don't play by the seasonal make up rules, so you'll see me wearing this in the heat of summer. Dark lipsticks suit me as I have hella pale skin and black hair, so you know, I tend to look like a goth half the time.

RRP: £15.50 and can be bought here

Yep, Rebel by MAC. I really love this lipstick, it's a lovely satin finish. I own the matte dupe of this lipstick - Wet n' Wild's Mega Last Lipstck in Sugar Plum Fairy, but it just doesn't look as good as Rebel does. I'm not a pink lipstick kind of gal, I love my dark lipsticks so this is just perfect for me. I bought this on a whim when I was in Norwich with my friend Jordan, walked past the MAC store and bam, £15 gone on a lipstick and I regret nothing.

RRP: £15.50 and can be bought here

A NUDE LIPSTICK? A NUDE LIPSTICK IS IN MY TOP 10 LIPSTICKS? It had to be, it's the only nude lipstick I've tried and liked. It's Rimmel's Lasting Finish Lipstick in 'Nude Pink', I don't really know why I like it so much, it's the only nude that I've tried that even remotely suits me. I'm dying to try Twig by MAC, pinky nudes suit me the best because of pale I am. I feel like if I tried a brownish nude, it'd look like I'd rubbed a dark concealer over my lips.

RRP: £4.99 and can be bought here

This lipstick is by L'Oreal and it's part of the Collection Exclusive Pure Red's range and it's in the shade 'Blake's Red', it's an almost exact dupe for Ruby Woo by MAC, only a bit less powdery.

It's a lovely blue toned red (which isn't that common when it comes to drugstore lipstick)

It has a very matte finish and it's so long lasting. The Collection Exclusive range has a lipstick for each female celebrity involved in the range (e.g Blake Lively, J-Lo, Julianne Moore etc)

RRP: £6.99 and can be bought here

I know what you're thinking. OH GOD RACHEL, IS THAT A GREEN LIPSTICK? Yes, yes it is. And it's very similar to Serpentina by Lime Crime. It's by Make Up Revolution and it's called 'Atomic Serpent'. It's a satin finish and is a shimmeryish forest green colour, it's lovely. I'm not brave enough to wear it out in public yet, but I'm working on it!

RRP: £1 and can be bought here

Oh look, another red lipstick (I'm boring, I know)

This is a Kate Moss by Rimmel lipstick in the shade '107', it's a nice dark wine colour, it's similar to Diva by MAC only a little bit more pink and less dark. It's a matte lipstick, but I find that it flakes a bit which is annoying.

I love that the Kate Moss lipsticks come in matte and satin finishes.

RRP: £5.49 and can be bought here

THIS ISN'T A RED LIPSTICK, I SWEAR. Okay, so it's a very orange toned red (shhh)

Again, this is another Kate Moss by Rimmel lipstick, this one is in the shade '110' and is part of the matte range, this one is less flaky than '107', I don't know if I go one from a bad batch but this lipstick feels all good.

The Kate Moss lipsticks are so pigmented, it's great.

RRP: £5.49 and can be bought here

Well, that's it! That's my top 10 lipsticks all finished.

What have we learned from this blog post?

Well, I really like a red lip and I'm obsessed with matte finishes? Yeah, I thought so.

Let me know what your favourite lipsticks are below! :)

That's all for now,

Rachel. xo

*This post may contain affiliate links.

16:58 2 comments

Hey you guys!

I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas. I spent mine in my new onesie on the sofa, buying lots of things from the sales, obviously.

This year I didn't really ask my parents for a lot because since I have my own income now, if there's something I want, I'll get it on payday. So these are more things they've spotted and thought I'd like or if I've wanted things for ages and couldn't bring myself to buy them because of the price or whatever. Let me just say, I hate surprises so a lot of the gifts from my parents, I picked out, haha.

Just a disclaimer which I don't really feel I should have to do but whatever, I'm not bragging, I appreciate every single gift I got given. And if you're anything like me, I love seeing what other people got for Christmas. I literally sat and watched about 9 What I Got For Christtmas 2014 videos this morning.

Let's get right into it!

My little sister bought me these and I love them. I know it might come as a shock, but I do like things other than Disney (I know, how weird!) but I knew I was possibly going to be getting a lot of Disney stuff for Christmas so I asked her to get me the Mia Wallace Funko POP figure (Pulp Fiction is one of my favourite movies) and the Kick-Ass 3 Graphic Novel, I've read the previous 2 and the films are in my top 5 favourite movies ever. The Adventure Time colouring book was a bit of a surprise, I've been kind of into colouring a lot lately so that was a super sweet present.

I went over to my best friend, Shauna's house on the Sunday before Christmas and we exchanged presents. It was all neatly wrapped on red polka dot paper and in a gorgeous Disney Princess gift bag (yes, I'm saving that for next year.)

I didn't notice a theme until I'd opened them all up but I was very impressed. I'd spotted the Minnie mug and soft toy in the Disney store a while back but I couldn't bring myself to spend £15 at the time on a mug. But I loooove them. Thank you, Shauna! (She also got me a gorgeous blingy triangle necklace which will be in the jewellery section of this blog post, so look out for that.

I've come to realise that I've organised this blog post very badly, oh dear! I've started so I'll finish it I suppose, haha. The cute Christmas Minnie is from my parents. I kind of gave them a list of things I'd spotted online that I really liked and they went and bought it. This was one of them but on it's own it was £20 (ouch!) but if you spent over £20 at Disney Store Online then it would be £9.99 on it's own, so that was one hell of a deal and my parents had gone way over the £20 mark, hahaha. She's so fluffy and the velvet on her dress is so soft, ugh. I live for soft toys.

The Bambi slippers were a present from my grandparents (well, kind of, my grandparents are getting on a bit and can't really go anywhere so they send my mum money for me and my sister and either mum gets us presents with that money or we pick some things out before Christmas) I found these in Primark for £8 and I was just madly in love, I had to get them. I always find a way to get slippers every year for Christmas, haha.

The Magical Unicorn Poop shot glass and the 'How About A Nice Tall Glass Of Shut The Fuck Up' pint glass were gifts from my parents. They know me so well. And the Pinocchio DVD was from the money my grandparents gave me. I saw it in Primark, the same trip I saw the Bambi slippers on.

Oh god, do excuse this god awful photo. I couldn't get them all in frame or in focus apparently, sorry!

The Eeyore notebook and Minnie Mouse Gift Set were gifts from my auntie and uncle on my dad's side. We usually give them a rough idea of things we like and this year was 'just anything disney or makeuppy' The Eeyore notebook is just so pretty I never want to use it, it's got these cute Eeyore pictures on the corners of each page and gah I love me some Eeyore, but it's just too cute.. Hahaha. The Minnie Mouse toiletries set has a little perfume, a body lotion and a body wash (I think), the perfume smells really lovely (I haven't smelled the other ones yet, oops.) My auntie and uncle also got me the cutest necklace ever (again in the jewellery section of the blog post, look out for it) and cute little eyeshadow palette from New Look. The Anna and Olaf mug is from the Disney Store and is gift from my parents (I picked that one out also, oops)

Oooh, the popularly mentioned jewellery section.

So, let's start with the gorgeous Ariel necklace, shall we. That was a gift from my auntie and uncle and funnily enough, I was going to buy a necklace very similar on payday but I stopped myself because I knew Christmas was soon, I absolutely adore it. The next two are gifts off my parents, the bracelet is a bit hard to see but it's an elasticated bracelet with pink blingy bits all over it, very cute. (I didn't even know about these ones!) and the last one is a present off my best friend, Shauna, she knows how much I love triangles. It's got 3 chains like 3 separate necklaces but there's a clasp connecting them all, so cute!

Okay so you see that Sleeping Beauty journal on the left? It's possibly the most perfect thing I've ever laid my eyes on. If I didn't get any other presents for Christmas, I'd be totally happy with just that. It was £12 from the Disney Store (yikes!) and it's from their Limited Edition Fairytale Collection, and it was also a gift from my parents. Thank you Mum and Dad, I love it!

The Minnie Mouse agenda on the right is a gift from my auntie and uncle on my Dad's side again, it super adorable. The whole book has a matte feel to it and you can enter your own dates on it! At the top of each page it says "Date:_____" NO MORE EMPTY PAGES. I hate that, when I get a daily journal/diary and it has set dates for each page. Like hello, maybe I don't want everybody to know I can't stick to writing in a diary? Hahaha.

These are both gifts from my parents (which I may or may not have picked out, as I said, hate surprises.) I found the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark box set on Amazon! Unfortunately it's not the Stephen Gammell edition of the books like I thought originally but still great stories none-the-less! And of course, Red Dead Redemption for Xbox, I've wanted this game for ages now but just never got round to buying it. I haven't started it yet but it look pretty good from what I've seen (Let's Play's on YouTube are very helpful.)

These are presents from the Secret Santa we did at work. So there's a lady at work called Fatima and I call her my work mum. Ever since I started she's looked out for me and she's just so lovely. So I was her secret santa, I got her some cute earrings and an Along Came Betty gift set. And it turns out she was my secret santa also! The budget was £5 by the way. She also got me some Frozen chocolate lollies. So, the Frozen handwash, I bought this for myself at the weekend previously from Poundland and it smells so lovely so I was really pleased to get that, there's so much of it in the bottle too! She got me a more appropriate cup for work (all I drink at work is squash, and I ALWAYS smash the glasses at work, so a plastic cup works perfectly, and obviously, it has Minnie on it, so even more perfect). And then the gorgeous Disney tin with most of the Disney characters all around it, which was once filled with very yummy cookies that I may or may not have already eaten, oops!

You know your obsession is bad when everybody at work knows about it too, haha!

So these are all gifts from my parents (except the Pure Colour palette which is from my lovely auntie and uncle.)

So, I got the gorgeous Smokey Eye Palette from the Holiday Keepsakes Collection by MAC. LOOK AT THAT PACKAGING. I got a Paintpot by MAC in the shade 'Painterly' (cult classic?) I also got some Real Techniques brushes, the buffing brush I got with the core collection that I got for Christmas last year has completely fallen apart, bless it, so I got the expert face brush and the eye starter kit. I also got a MAC lipsick in 'Flat Out Fabulous'. My auntie's sister was wearing that lipstick at my auntie's wedding and it just looked gorgeous on and I've been lusting after it for ages now.

And finally, my auntie and uncle got me one of the eyeshadow palettes from New Look's new make up line, Pure Colour. I've been wanting to try these out for a while now, so now I have the perfect opportunity! The colours are lovely too.

So my 'main' present I suppose is from my auntie and uncle on my mum's side and my parents (I got this before Christmas with the money I was given by my auntie and uncle and my mum put a little bit towards it also.)

So the bag I'm using everyday for work is a Primark bag, I bought it in September, it was £10 and it's falling to bits so I desperately needed a new one. I spotted this ages ago in my local alternative/emo/goth shop when I was buying my polka dot 50's dress for the Christmas Masquerade Ball fundraiser for work. It's buy the brand, Banned, it was £30 and it's a gorgeous black faux leather bag with a big sugar skull on the front. I absolutely adore it.

I just want to say a huge thank you to anybody that bought me a present or gave me money. I'm so appreciative of everything I got and I love you all very much. :-)

I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas! Let me know what you got for Christmas in the comments below.

That's all for now,
Rachel. xo

13:45 1 comments

19:00 No comments

20:18 2 comments

Hi guys,

I haven't posted since July, I have a good excuse, I swear! (Okay so maybe not.) I haven't fallen off the face of the planet, I swear. So I've been working for 5 months now and I've been panic attack free for 4 months, yeah I'll explain that in a little bit.

So I'm working for this amazing charity called Leeway, they support victims of domestic abuse and I'm really loving it. I'm doing it as an apprenticeship, so I'm supposed to go to college once a month (I don't go, college is still a huge no no for me but whatever) and I do my NVQ work in Business and Administration and I see an assessor, it's all fun and games. It's so nice to have a routine, I wake up at 6:15am every morning, get on the bus at 7:10am, get off the bus, walk a mile to work and I get to work at 8:45am. Yes, I'm getting the bus now and managing to stay on it for over and hour without having a panic attack. It's so weird.

My first day of work was so weird. I hadn't explained my anxiety at the interview so the first thing I needed to do was make my supervisor aware, she was super supportive and she gave me loads of options I could take if I felt panicky at work. So first day was over and not one panic attack. Second day came, I was meeting more people on my second day than on my first and it was a bit overwhelming and I was a panicky mess, they all turned out to be so nice and I knew I had nothing to worry about. Third, fourth and fifth day came around, and I still hadn't had a panic attack. The only one I can recall was one morning on the bus, there was a whole load of students sat around me and I just felt incredibly uncomfortable, I got off the bus in my town and my mum ended up driving me to work, that was the last time I had a panic attack. Most people at work are aware of my problem and they're all super nice about it and I wouldn't feel like such an idiot if I had a panic attack. I think because I'm so busy at work, I don't have time to be feeling anxious.
I work the reception desk at work, I have to greet people from external agencies, on my first week I was avoiding meeting external people like the plague. Now I'm much more confident with meeting new people (adults, still not cool with meeting people my own age) and now I can answer the phone wiithout panicking about who's on the other end of the line.

It's safe to say I'm pretty proud of myself. I'm probably never going to be totally okay around people my own age for the time being but because I'm working in a place where the majority of the women there are 30-50, they're obviously a lot more mature and that's totally fine.

As for blogging, since I'm working 5 days a week, I leave at 7am and get home at around 6pm-7pm, I'm not finding much time for blogging, bearing in mind I also have to fit in my NVQ work whenever I have time to myself, so evenings and weekends. On the plus side, I now have a working laptop. That was another factor of me not blogging, my laptop totally just crashed and didn't want to do anything, I'd load it up and everything would just crash, so I had nothing really to blog on, but now I have a lovely new bright pink HP laptop, it's hella fast and does everything I need it to, so I may be blogging more frequently now, we'll see.

So really, these last 5 months have been pretty flippin' cool. I'm a much happier, positive person and I'm super proud of myself for not letting my anxiety ruin this opportunity for me. Good job, brain.

I hope you're all doing fabulous, it'd be cool to hear what you've been up to these last 5 months. :)

That's all for now,
Rachel. xo

10:20 2 comments

Rachel Sarah XO

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