Autumn Beauty Essentials

Hey guys! I hope you've all been having a great week.

The leaves around where I live have been turning all different shades of red, copper and orange and it inspired me to write a post about my favourite products to use in the autumn. In this post I'll be talking about my favourite seasonal eyeshadow and lipstick shades as well as the skincare items I wouldn't be able to live without as the weather gets colder.

SKINCARE

Skincare is always something that is important to me but it's even more so as the weather gets colder. I have combination skin and during the summer it's especially oily but by October it's dry as a bone and I have to moisturise my skin twice a day. My favourite face moisturiser is the Superdrug Vitamin E Intense Moisture Cream because it's light, sinks into my skin with ease yet keeps me moisturised for hours. Like it says, it really is an intense moisturiser so I wouldn't recommend it to someone with oily skin.

Another product I love to keep me moisturised in the autumn is the L'Oreal Lumi Maguique Primer. It makes my skin feel so soft and smooth and makes it look glowy and radiant at the same time. I love using an illuminating primer in the autumn as I always set my foundation and I find that sometimes being 100% matte can make me look a little dull. It keeps me moisturised and looking luminous, and the only thing I don't like about it is that it doesn't prolong the wear of my foundation.

I have the dryest lips possibly in existence all year round, especially as I hardly ever wear lipsticks that aren't matte so obviously I've tried every lip balm the high street has to offer. A lot of lip balms I've tried make my lips sticky but don't actually add any moisture whatsoever, including the original Baby Lips lip balms (even though they're the cutest lip balms I've ever seen). However, the Maybelline Baby Balm & Blush really works and I was so impressed with it. My grandma bought it for me in the shade "Flirty Pink" and I didn't really expect a lot from it but I love it. It's a blush as well, although I don't use it for that, and it also doesn't give any colour payoff which I like. I use it before I go to bed, after I've taken off my makeup and I end up waking up with beautifully soft lips. It's a must for me especially as the cold weather always dries my lips out.

However, I can deal with dry lips and a dry face but the one thing I cannot stand is having dry hands. My all time favourite hand cream is Soap & Glory's Hand Food. I can't put my finger on what it is I love about it but there's nothing I can fault about it. It is a little bit pricey but it's worth every single penny.

EYESHADOW

Autumnal makeup is my thing. I love working with orange and cranberry and terracotta and plum and warm brown colours and even in May, it's pretty much safe to say I'll be rocking a burnt orange and gold smokey eye with a berry lip. I live for autumnal makeup trends and as a result I have a ton of autumn-y eyeshadow palettes. Here are my top three!

The Morphe 35T palette is such a beautiful palette and is ideal for creating a striking autumn smokey eye. My best friend bought it for me in around May and I've used it every day since - I'm obsessed! It's full of gold and berry tones as well as a couple of burnt browns and even a cool-toned green. There's no end to the amount of looks that can be created with this palette and the foiled shades are so soft, pigmented and beautiful. However, the matte shades do leave a little bit to be desired but there are only 6 matte shades in it anyway. At £21.00 it's very reasonably priced, plus if you buy it from BeautyBay you get free delivery over £15 so it's worth ordering!

The W7 Lightly Toasted palette was one of the first eyeshadow palettes I ever owned and it's still a firm favourite (not just with me, Meg the guinea pig loves it too. She says the warm tones compliment her fur beautifully). It's a dupe for the Naked 1 palette and while I don't own it since I don't have £38 to throw away on the most duped eyeshadow palette on the market, I would say it's a really good dupe. The gold shade in the middle is one of my favourite eyeshadows ever, and while some of the shadows aren't all that great, the ones that are perform fantastically. The warm tones in this palette make it the perfect palette to create every day autumnal eye looks.

My all-time favourite eyeshadow palette is the Makeup Revolution New-trals VS Neutrals palette. If you follow me on Instagram (katstokesbeauty) you will know that I use this in basically every eye look I do. The three foiled shades on the bottom row are a bit rubbish and have no coverage or pigmentation, they're more like pressed glitters than eyeshadows but every other shade in the palette is beautiful. I love the cool-toned taupey shades on the bottom row and the warm-toned sunset shades; it's just one of those palettes that has it all. The top row is actually supposed to be a dupe for the Lime Crime Venus 1 palette and the bottom row is a dupe for the Naked 3 palette which I love. This palette is only £6.99 and worth absolutely every penny.

LIPSTICK

I am a lipstick junkie. It feels like every time I walk into a shop that sells lipstick, I come out with at least one. I can't help myself. I have way too many lipsticks for my own good and way too many autumnal ones, and to save this post from being 100 years long I've reduced it to my top 5. I don't have pictures of each individual one but I do have swatches which I'll post after I've talked about them.

The first autumnal lipstick I ever bought was Plum Sensation by Collection, which as you can tell by the name, is a deep plum colour. It's matte but doesn't feel too drying on the lips, and is super affordable too. It's also a perfect night-out lipstick, although if you wanna wear it in the day like I do, go for it!

However, I much prefer the formulas of the MUA matte lipsticks and at £1 each you really can't go wrong. One of the shades I love in the autumn (and all year round, let's be real) is the shade Fawn Fancy (sometimes called Fancy Fawn). There's a lot of hype surrounding this shade as it's a dupe for Mac's cult favourite lipstick, Velvet Teddy. It's a stunning warm brown nude shade, and is the ideal nude for autumn.

The second MUA matte lipstick on this list is Mystic Marsala, a nineties berry shade. It's one of my favourite lipsticks and goes with pretty much any eye look.

The next lipstick I want to talk about is the NYX Lingerie liquid lipstick in the shade "Exotic". If you've read my last couple of blog posts you will know I love the NYX Lingerie range, and that Exotic is one of my favourite liquid lipstick shades ever. It's a stunning terracotta colour and is quite bold considering the Lingerie line is supposed to be about finding your perfect nude, but it is the ideal autumn lipstick. I am obsessed with these lipsticks and I'll definitely be picking up Honeymoon and Ruffle Trim next!

Aaaand the last lipstick (and product I'm gonna mention in this post) is the NYX Liquid Suede in "Vintage". It's a very deep colour, almost like a purpley red, and everything about it just screams autumn. It's a gorgeous vampy shade that looks different on absolutely everybody. The NYX Liquid Suede lipsticks don't actually dry completely matte and are described as a "cream lipstick" rather than a liquid lipstick so before buying them be warned! They do transfer and they do smudge but they come in such amazing colours that it's worth looking past if you're not particularly fussy about lipsticks.

Here are some swatches:

Aaaaaand here are some pictures of my rabbit Bonbon eating my props:

And that concludes today's blog post! Speak to you again on Sunday :)

- Kat x

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Ride or Die Makeup Tag!

Hey guys! I hope you've all been having a great week :)

The Ride or Die Makeup Tag is actually a YouTube tag created by one of my favourite beauty vloggers, Jaclyn Hill. The tag is aaaall over YouTube right now and I wanted to join in but since I don't have a YouTube channel I thought my blog would suffice.

The main concept of this tag is picking out one make-up product from each category that you can't live without - the first products you'd go back to the shops and buy if you lost your entire makeup collection; the products you'd take with you to a desert island. I did add one category though, which is brows, because I felt that it had been missed out but apart from that it's the exact same tag. If you're interested in finding out what my ride or die products are, you're in the right place!

PRIMER
This was a pretty difficult one because I haven't used that many primers, but I finally decided on Maybelline Baby Skin Instant Pore Eraser. It makes my skin look so smooth and beautiful and I really do find it prolongs my foundation. A little bit really does go a long way and I bought it way back in May and I still have it, and it doesn't show any signs of running out anytime soon. I love it so much and when I run out I will definitely be repurchasing it.

Buy it here | Price: £7.99

FOUNDATION
I think this is probably the most predictable category. I can practically hear you thinking, "Why's she even including this category? We all know it's the Revlon ColourStay," and you'd be right. I have the combination/oily one, although there is one for normal to dry skin, and I am in the shade "Buff" which is the closest foundation to my skin tone I have ever found. There is nothing I don't love about this foundation. It's got completely customisable coverage, it has a beautiful finish and it's so easy to work with. It's a totally foolproof foundation and I will continue to buy it for the rest of my life, probably. I just can't fault it, I'm on my second bottle already!

Buy it here | Price: £12.99

CONCEALER
When I first bought the Collection Lasting Perfection concealer I was a little skeptical, I'll be honest. I love Collection as a brand but I tried their Illuminating Touch Foundation just under a year ago and I hated it. It was greasy and luminous orange in colour, so I wasn't holding out much hope for the concealer. I saw KathleenLights use it in one of her makeup tutorials and I decided to go for it, since I 100% trust her and I know she wouldn't use a product she hated in a tutorial. I am in the shade "Fair" and it is like no other concealer I have used before. It covers my dark circles and blemishes so well without being overly thick or cakey. It lasts all day, doesn't crease and makes a beautiful eyeshadow base, too. It's so cheap and so good and I've not found a concealer that does the job as well before or since. If you don't own this already, pick it up from your local Boots, Superdrug or Wilkinsons. You won't regret it.

Buy it here | Price: £4.19

FACE POWDER
This post is sounding a bit like a Collection advert right now but I promise it's not, I just love them! Their Sheer Loose Powder in "Translucent" is a beautiful, finely milled loose powder that makes me look so flawless. It smooths out my entire complexion, making my pores and texture look invisible. The only thing I don't like about this powder is the colour - it unfortunately makes my foundation darker. However, it makes my skin look so good I overlook that fact and until I find a face powder that does everything this does apart from make me orange, this will continue to be my favourite.

Buy it here | Price: £2.99

UNDEREYE SETTING POWDER
I've never bought a marketed "undereye setting powder" but to set my undereyes I love using the lightest shade from the Makeup Revolution Ultra Contour palette. This palette in itself is a ride or die product, but this shade looks so beautiful under my eyes. I like applying this with the pointy end of a damp beauty sponge and pressing it directly under my eyes to set my concealer. It brightens my undereyes and makes me look so awake, and also makes my undereye area look smooth, which is hard because I have fine lines under my eyes (tragic, I know, I'm ageing at 17 years old). I'm even considering buying another contour palette just so I can continue to use this shade!

Buy it here | Price: £8.00

BROW PRODUCT
I've seen so many people add in their ride or die brow product when doing this tag but Jaclyn herself didn't do it in her video so I'm not sure this is allowed but who cares? The Freedom Brow Pomade is incredible, it lasts ages, looks fantastic and is so easy to use. There were a couple of months where I suddenly stopped using this and went back to brow powder but I'm so glad I came back to this. I use the shade "Soft Brown" if anyone was wondering and it's a perfect match for my hair colour. I don't own the Anastasia Beverly Hills Dipbrow Pomade but this is supposed to be a really good dupe!

Buy it here | Price: £5.00

BLUSH
Blush and I are on good terms, we're nice to each other and smile at each other in the hallway but we don't hang out at the weekend. However, I do think the Makeup Revolution Vivid Baked Blusher in the shade "Hard Day" is the most beautiful blush I've ever seen. It's a smooth, glowy, nude-tone blush that adds colour to your cheeks while giving you a gorgeous natural glow. I stopped using it for a while but picked it up again a few weeks ago and I remembered why I used to love it so much.

Buy it here | Price: £2.50

BRONZER
So I know in my Benefit Cosmetics: Worth The Money? blog post I might have said I wasn't all that mad on the Benefit Hoola Bronzer, but in the last week I've changed my mind. I love this bronzer. It has no orange in it so it looks gorgeous once blended out and I've decided that it's my ideal contour shade. It blends out seamlessly and I love it as a transition shade for eyeshadow too. I'm sorry for ever doubting you Hoola, I will 100% repurchase you in the future.

Buy it here | Price: £23.50

HIGHLIGHTER
Almost overnight, the Sleek Solstice Highlighting Palette seemed to blow up in the beauty community and as soon as I brought it home I realised why. This palette is beautiful and so intense, yet not too over-the-top. My favourite shade from the palette is "Equinox", a peachy golden copper shade. I've not found a highlighter I love just as much before or since and I use it pretty much every time I do my makeup. There's a shade in this palette for everybody and it's a very good colour dupe for the Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit in "Sweets"! It's worth every penny and if you haven't bought it yet, why not?

Buy it here | Price: £9.99

MASCARA
I got the W7 Flirty Eyes mascara for my 17th birthday and I was very quick to dismiss it because I didn't like the brush. However, when I ran out of the mascara I was using at the time, I picked this mascara up and we've had a love affair ever since. This mascara makes my lashes look longer and thicker at the same time, and is also waterproof. It's just a fantastic all-round mascara and gives you the look of false lashes. It's basically everything I could ever want from a mascara! I love this stuff and if you haven't checked it out already, definitely do so!

Buy it here | Price: £5.95

LIPSTICK
Lipsticks are my weakness - it feels like every time I go anywhere that sells lipsticks I have to buy one, so as a result I have quite a big collection. Surprisingly, picking out my ride or die was easy: MUA Matte Lipstick in "Totally Nude". MUA lipsticks are dirt cheap and so creamy and pigmented. I personally prefer the formula of their matte range to their original lipsticks but that's just personal preference. "Totally Nude" is a warm pink-toned nude that goes so well with every eye look. It's my go-to nude lipstick and it cost me £1! It's the perfect nude for my skin tone and I cannot rave about it enough.

Buy it here | Price: £1.00

LIQUID LIPSTICK
I have a couple of different liquid lipstick formulas in my collection, and while the NYX Lip Lingerie in "Teddy" is a fairly new purchase, I already know it's my ride or die. It's a stunning cool-tone brown that would look good on any skin tone: as a bold, dark lip for someone with fair skin or a beautiful nude for someone with dark skin. I want the entire range of Lingerie liquid lipsticks, I love the formula and all the different shades. I think I'm either gonna pick up Ruffle Trim or Embellishment next!

Buy it here | Price: £6.50

Aaaaand that completes today's blog post! I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their week and I'll speak to you again on Sunday :)

- Kat x

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L'Oreal True Match Wear Test & Review

Hey guys, I hope you've all had a great weekend!

A couple of weeks ago I picked up the new, reformulated L'Oreal True Match foundation in the shade 1W. This foundation has been a cult favourite for years and I've heard everyone from Jaclyn Hill to small beauty bloggers talk about how it's the best drugstore foundation, so I wanted to buy it and write a review on it. In this blog post I'll be giving my first impressions and telling you how it wears, as well as my overall opinion.

6:30am
I've just finished applying my foundation, and off the bat it does look a little too yellow for me. It has a kind of satin finish, so I'll definitely be setting this with a powder, but so far I like it. I'd say it has a medium coverage; it definitely doesn't make me look as flawless as my beloved Revlon ColourStay but it looks really natural. One thing I have noticed though is that it has little shimmery particles in it, almost like teeny tiny pieces of glitter. It's not something I've ever seen in a foundation before so we'll see how it goes!

12:30pm
I've finished my timetabled lessons for the day and my foundation still looks intact. I'm surprised it survived the walk to school to be honest because it's so lightweight that it doesn't feel like I'm wearing any foundation at all. I can't see the light-reflecting particles on my skin at all and I don't feel tacky around my chin and pores which is a good sign, but the foundation's only been on for 6 hours so I'll have to keep it on a bit longer and wait.

3:30pm
I've just got home and the foundation is still looking pretty good! After college I had enrichment, and my chosen enrichment is running so I expected the foundation to look disastrous, but I'm impressed! My eyeliner is smudged, my lipstick is wearing off and my highlight is nowhere to be seen but my foundation is pretty much intact. It is wearing off a little bit around my hairline and feels slightly tacky around my chin and pores, but that is to be expected after running for an hour and then walking home. I'm gonna keep it on for a few more hours and I'll update you all!

11pm
I'm getting ready for bed now, but before I take off my makeup I wanna do a quick update. The foundation is beginning to look a little bit more oily but not disco ball/ glazed doughnut/ Chinese takeaway oily, just naturally dewy. The rest of my makeup looks disgusting as it's been on for more than 16 hours so the sooner I get this off the better.

After I've Taken Off My Makeup
My skin feels normal - not oily and not dry which is so weird for me as normally I'm either one or the other (I have combination to oily skin if anyone was curious). Even though the Revlon ColourStay foundation is my favourite foundation of all time, it does dry the hell out of my skin which is probably the only thing I don't dig about it. The L'Oreal True Match doesn't seem to do that, probably because it's much more lightweight and not marketed as a matte or demi-matte foundation. After I took off my makeup I applied the Superdrug Vitamin E toner spray, followed by the Intense Moisture Cream from the same line.

The Verdict
I like this foundation! I'll definitely be using it again. I do wish I got the shade 1N instead of 1W but it's fine, I can blend it down my neck or add in a mixer and I'm sure I'll be good to go. I really like full coverage foundations as my skin is not the best and this definitely is not full coverage (more of a medium coverage, I'd say) but this would be a perfect summer foundation when I don't want to be wearing something thick and heavy. The glitter particles in the foundation make it super unique, and while you can't really see it on the skin once it's blended out I don't think it'd be a good idea to wear this to an event where there's gonna be flash photography as I have a feeling it'd give a bit of flashback. This foundation is great for all skin tones and skin types which is fantastic - it has such a large range of shades for a drugstore foundation and is so lightweight that it is perfect if you have sensitive skin or don't like the feel of foundation. Because it's not in any way matte or dewy, it's perfect for everyone. I'd definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a good foundation under £10!

Would I repurchase? Yes
Would I recommend? Yes
Price: £9.99

Buy this foundation here

And that concludes today's blog post! Enjoy the rest of your weekend and I'll speak to you again on Wednesday :)

- Kat x

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Olympia Beauty 2016

Hey guys! I hope your week has got off to a great start.

Not the weekend just passed but the weekend before, I attended Olympia Beauty. For those who don't know, Olympia Beauty is a beauty event in Olympia, London where you can buy makeup from big, professional brands and small, lesser-known brands looking to get their name out there.

The day was great - I didn't stay the whole time as I didn't feel I needed to but I had a fantastic day. A day dedicated to makeup? Basically my idea of heaven. Some of the big brands with stalls there included Nails Inc, OPI, Benefit and NYX. All of these brands offered discounts specific to the show, which I thought was quite exciting. I picked up two NYX Lingerie lipsticks in the shades "Teddy" and "Exotic", which are two shades that I have been lusting over since I saw Shaaanxo's YouTube video where she swatched the whole range. Teddy is quite possibly my new favourite lipstick ever.

I also stopped at some smaller stalls. I picked up three Karaja lipsticks for £1 each in some beautiful colours (a cremesheen berry, a matte lilacy grey and a matte warm brown) and a holographic nail polish top coat, which was also £1.

I also headed over to the Saturated Colour stand as I have heard many great things about them from one of my favourite YouTube beauty bloggers, SophDoesNails. I bought a lipstick in the shade "First Base" and the two girls at the counter were so friendly and so helpful. For those who don't know who Saturated Colour are, they're a cruelty-free and mostly vegan makeup brand. They make all kinds of lipsticks and also have some really original product ideas such as a lip scrub stick, a lipstick that you layer over the top of another lipstick to make it matte and a lipstick that you layer over the top of another lipstick to change the colour. If you wanna check out their range of products I will put a link to their website at the bottom of the post.

I also visited the Lash Unlimited stand and picked up a pair of their #7 Wispies. They're so little and dainty and natural and don't look too long on me, yet still improve my lashes. And they were a steal at £2.50 a pair! I will put the link at the bottom of my post if you're interested in buying some lashes from them.

Last but not least I picked up a makeup sponge from a brand called Look Good Feel Better! The proceeds of all their brushes and makeup tools goes towards getting makeup artists and beauty students to teach women who are feeling rubbish about their appearance due to the physical effects of cancer treatment. I wish I could've bought more but by this point I was short on cash but I will definitely pick up some more brushes from them! Again, I'll put a link to their brushes below and you can pick some up and do something good while treating yourself.

And that concludes today's blog post! I'll speak to you again on Sunday but for now, I'll leave you with all the links you need :)

- Kat x

Check out Saturated Colour here
Check out Lash Unlimited here
Check out Look Good Feel Better here

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Benefit Cosmetics: Worth The Money?

Hey guys! I hope you've all had a great week.

Recently, I've had a fair few Benefit products fall into my lap; from the Dew The Hoola sample being a free gift with Elle magazine to going on holiday to France and picking up a few pieces from Sephora. Benefit is a highly pricey brand sold at most department stores in the UK, and their products have a lot of hype surrounding them. But do these products live up to the hype, and are they worth they money? I'll be reviewing the four products I have from them in this post.

Dew The Hoola
This was the first Benefit product I ever got my hands on as it was free with Elle magazine last month. It says the sample is worth £9.99, which after seeing the size of the bottle makes me want to cry. You can buy full-sized cream bronzers for a third of the price! However, this is not your standard cream bronzer. In fact, it's not even cream at all: it's a liquid bronzer (the same kind of consistency as a liquid illuminator). You pump a little bit onto the back of your hand or a palette or whatever and apply it, and it does have a very nice soft, creamy consistency. However, it is so soft and creamy that it just...blends away. I'm not entirely sure I understand the concept of the product to be honest, and I think it's just gonna sit at the bottom of my contour and highlight drawer collecting dust.

Cost of full-size: £20.25
Would I repurchase? No
Do I recommend? No

The Porefessional
When I was in Sephora, I picked up a kit called the "Porefessionally Bronzed" kit, and The Porefessional was a part of it. The whole kit itself set me back €35,50 and when I took this little sample out of the box, a part of me died inside. It was like they were having a laugh or something - the sample is no bigger than 3cm tall. And the worst thing? I nearly picked up a sample instore for €12. Jesus. However, this product is a really good product. It does make my massive pores on and around my nose look invisible, and it smells incredible. However, it is a bit of a pricey product. Yes, I would recommend this to someone looking for a good high-end primer to splash some cash on. However, to those of you like me who love a good budget product, I recommend either the Maybelline Baby Skin primer or the W7 Camera Ready primer as they are essentially the same thing.

Cost of full-size: £22.05
Would I repurchase? No
Do I recommend? Yes

Watt's Up
Another product in the "Porefessionally Bronzed" kit was a sample of the Watt's Up cream highlighter. It comes in stick form and is a beautiful golden champagne colour. It's quite a good size for a sample, I still don't think I'd use it all up as a little bit goes a long way. I personally like to wear it underneath a powder highlighter for that real "I-can-see-your-highlight-from-space" effect. I have quite fair, warm-toned skin and I think this is a teeny bit too dark for me, though. But I set it with a powder highlighter and it doesn't seem to look too dark, so I don't really mind. It's a really pretty highlighter, however I think there are some much prettier ones from the drugstore (*cough* Sleek *cough). But it all comes down to personal preference and it is really beautiful and well-formulated.

Cost of full size: £22.05
Would I repurchase? No
Do I recommend: Yes

Hoola
The third and final product in the "Porefessionally Bronzed" kit (which costs £23.50 on the Boots website, by the way) is the cult bronzer, Hoola. And it's a full size! I was so excited as even though I love my affordable beauty buys, I have always wanted to get my hands on it. However, I don't think I really like the colour. It doesn't really do a good job of bronzing my face and it's not really my ideal contour shade. However, this is a beautiful transition shade for eyeshadow but I really don't know if it's worth it.

Cost of full size: £21.15
Would I repurchase? No
Do I recommend: No

And that concludes today's blog post! I hope this helped some people out. Speak to you again on Wednesday!

- Kat x

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