Jeffree Star Liquid Lipstick Review: Rose Matter

Remember back when I did my To Highlight or Not to Highlight post and I was approximately 100 years behind the trend? Well that wasn't a one time occurrence, it's basically describes my entire life, liquid lipsticks included.

I've been contemplating getting a liquid lipstick from either Kat Von D or Jeffree Star for a long long time and when JS released Rose Matter it was a shade I was immediately drawn to and after some scrolling online I did an impulse purchase, which never really happens for me with beauty products...take away food yes..but beauty products...never!



So what appealed to me about this one enough to buy it? I just really liked the colour of Rose Matter, it's a pretty standard colour, nothing too out there which is what you normally get with the JS range, and all the swatches I'd seen online looked really pretty. It definitely seemed like a colour I could wear and not feel really self conscious about. It probably helped that I'd been really into watching JS's YouTube channel, binge watching if you will. So I decided to take the plunge.

So ordering just one lipstick cost me about £20 with the postage included, the package arrived quite quickly, I think it arrived in just over a week, which isn't bad really coming all the way from America. I didn't have to pay any import tax but then I only ordered one, so if you are ordering more than one, I'd do some research in case you get taxed.

First impressions are that I really like the packaging, its very bright and pink but I quite like that, it stands out on my make-up table! The wand is quite bendy and easy to use, having a flexible wand makes it much easier to apply. I have to admit that I don't really like the smell of this, it's quite strong and sweet smelling, I prefer to have products without any smells because if I don't like the smell it tends to put me off using it!

Now, I absolutely suck at applying this, I have a really thin upper lip and I think liquid lipstick just highlights that rather than makes it look better. I also think this would be much better with a lip pencil to line your lips, I just don't have any pencils that would match this shade! It does dry down really matte and isn't drying at all. The colour stays on my lips for hours and it only came off after eating something properly for dinner, it lasted through my lunch at work and sipping water throughout the day!





This is freshly applied so still has a sheen but does dry completely matte, I  promise! 

I'm honestly not even sure this colour suits me which is a huge disappointment after having splurged on it and waiting for it to arrive. I'm going to keep wearing it when I feel brave enough and maybe i'll eventually get used to wearing more of a bright colour. I do think buying a lip pencil will help because it'll make applying it much easier, it's hard to make a liquid lipstick look amazing on your lips when they aren't lined!

After taking the photos for this blog post I have noticed that if you pay really close attention you can notice very tiny tiny speckles of glitter, which is cute but you'd never actually notice!

I can honestly say this wasn't worth the splurge, the colour is beautiful but I just don't think it suits me personally, which is such a shame. It certainly looks darker on me than the lighter coral shade that shows on JS's website, so if you do order please make sure you research some other swatches online!

Let me know your liquid lipstick recommendations as I would love to try some other brands and hopefully find the one that converts me!



* This post went live before all the recent issues surrounding Jeffree Star and I will not be endorsing his product from now on.

8 Things I Learnt From Re-Watching How I Met Your Mother.

I want to put my hands up here and say How I Met Your Mother is one of my favourite TV programmes and I've pretty much watched through the entire series 3-4 times. During the recent watch through I noticed/learnt a few things that I had never really paid attention to before, which is always interesting when you've seen something so many times!

01. Ted is pretty annoying.
There is always one character out of a group that you like the least and for me it's always Ted. He's really whiny and miserable and his whole life seems to revolve around getting 'the girl'. I understand that is pretty much the entire premise of the show but he doesn't need to be so smarmy about it.


02. Barney is brilliant.
Now I'm all against sexism and women being viewed as objects, but it's a TV show and Barney is hilarious. The writers are so creative with his character and Neil Patrick Harris plays the role perfectly. Who hasn't said 'Legendary' or 'Haaaaveeee you met Ted?'. Classics.


03. Lily Pad and Marsh Mellow are goals.
Some people probably find Lily and Marshal really cheesy and gross but I absolutely adore them. They're such a great couple together, they really work together as a team and truly love each other. Even when Lily does a runner one season we all knew she'd be back and everything will be back to gooey goodness. I wish I could get pancakes made for me every Sunday!


04. There is a whole season where Lily just disappears.
I think the actress Alyson Hannigan was pregnant for this season and she just wasn't it for some reason. I'd never noticed before but once you notice its so blatantly obvious. She's just not there or she's in the odd episode for about 3 minutes at a time and it just all looks really odd and Marshal doesn't seem to mention her being away or anything. Which leads me onto my next point..


05. Alyson Hannigan and Cobie Smoulders are both heavily pregnant during Season 4. 
Again this is something you might not notice for the first couple of watches but once I noticed it, it was really hard to un-see it. Basically for the entire of Season 4 both actresses were heavily pregnant and the costume designers do a fab job of covering it up! Alyson is the more obvious of the two as she's so tiny and she suddenly wears very baggy clothes and things are very conveniently placed in front of her during shots! But look out for it if you've never noticed before!


06. The episode Barney sings about suits is my favourite.
Ever since I saw this episode it's always been my favourite. Anything kind of musical-esque wins my heart over and a comical song about suits? What's not to love, seriously. YouTube it.


07. The 'mothers' story is very short and sad.
After so much build up throughout the seasons, you do eventually meet the mother of Ted's children however she is a very brief part of the show and without spoilers, isn't around for very long. I feel like this is such a disappointment. You are just left wanting to get to know her a little better which is probably why they did it this way, but it certainly leave the viewers a little underwhelmed after 9 season of finding her.

08. The ending is very disappointing and predictable.
I was very disappointed with the ending to the TV show. It's also very predictable.. It's one of those things that was pretty much set up from the beginning of the show, I do wonder if they just ran out of ideas of what to do and just did a Lost and just went with the boring predictable option. The first time around watching the series I actually saw a spoiler for the ending accidentally and just stopped watching it because I was so disappointed but I soldiered through recently and was as disappointed as I expected I would be.


I hope you enjoyed this post, I always love writing these type of posts because watching TV series and talking about them is basically my favourite hobby.

Please let me know if you've noticed anything that I haven't! I love hearing peoples opinions on TV and film.




If you've enjoyed this post you might also enjoy the following;
8 Things I Learnt From Re-watching Sex and the City.
3 Disappointing Moments from the Harry Potter Series
7 Things I Learnt From Re-watching Twilight 

Meadowhall Illamasqua Vegan Event.

When I got invited to the Illamasqua Vegan event in Meadowhall, I was quite excited to learn about some more cruelty free products. I'd heard of Illamasqua before but I've never tried any of their products, so it was a good chance to get to know the products and the brand a little better. They have recently been approved by PETA and the event was to highlight the products that were fully vegan.

Around a year ago, not long after starting my blog I decided to go cruelty free. This is something I thought would be a really hard transition but it actually turned out to be a pretty easy swap over. There are so many amazing cruelty free brands around that I've discovered and so many amazing products, it's good to know you can still look incredible and animals haven't suffered for the privilege.

Upon arrival we were welcomed with strawberries and marshmallows and then we were offered some elder flower juice, I love all three of these things so it was lovely to have a little snack and of course they were all vegan.

We were then shown two make up looks with the vegan products. The first was a more toned down natural look for everyday and second was a bunny inspired look, for those that don't know a bunny is the logo for PETA, so it fitted the theme of the event nicely.

Thank you to Aimee - for letting me use her image as mine didn't come out great!

I really loved this second look, obviously it's not an everyday look unless you are into something a little out there but I really really liked the flick of white at the end of the eyelashes, I thought it was really cute and really made the eye area stand out more. I also loved the white freckles, I'm a big lover of freckles and I thought this was such a lovely little twist. I just really enjoyed the whole look in general, it was really fun and nothing i'd seen before. Maybe it'll inspire me to try something new!

After the demo's I had a look around the products because like I said previously I've never actually seen any of the ranges before. I'm always drawn to the foundations and the lipsticks and I accidentally fell in love with two lipsticks called Climax and Scandal. I think after the wedding and the spending ban is lifted I'm going to head back and try a few things out.

Until then though we were all lucky enough to get given a little goodie bag with a black eyeliner and a primer which I can't wait to try out, I swatched the eyeliner on my hand and it's a really thin and precise line and very waterproof, I had to use cleanser to get it off because it wouldn't budge! So keep an eye out for a review of those soon!

I love going to events, especially for cruelty free brands so I can add them to my list of brands to try. Please let me know if you've tried Illamasqua , what your thoughts are or your favourite products as I would love to know!

Life Lately: A Little Update.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this post but I've been feeling a little shitty about a few things recently and writing a post feels very therapeutic sometimes, so that's what i'm going to do.




I've felt really stressed out and 'on edge' recently, I've never been to the doctors or really thought I suffer with anxiety but recently I've been feeling really on edge, like I'm balancing on the edge of something that some days feels too much and other days I can just about cope with.

The main focus of my stress is money, I've spoken a little about our money situation in this post about living on a budget, we are getting married at the end of October this year and it's quite literally taking all of our money to pay for it. At least twice a week I go over everything for our budget and nothing ever changes, it's costing a fortune and sometimes I honestly believe we won't afford it. The stress of worrying over every single little thing that comes out of the bank and thinking about everything that could go wrong between now and October pretty much takes up all of my head space. We're both just exhausted from worrying, worrying about money, worrying about not being able to afford it and some of the time it takes over so much that we just think 'what are we doing?'.

This makes me sad, I can't wait to marry Nick, I really can't but sometimes the stress of everything just tops that excitement and fear and panic takes over instead. There have been times when we've honestly just thought about forgetting all about it and running off and getting married on our own but then the logic returns and we change our minds all over again, of course we want our parents and friends there.

I have to admit one of the things that are getting me through is Christmas, I love Christmas and the thought of us having money again and being able to buy each other presents and eat amazing food really helps me. We've even discussed finally getting a puppy! I know people reading this will be like 'surely getting married to the love of your life will make it all worth it?!' and yes, 100% of course it will be, but when all of your stress revolves around wedding thoughts, sometimes it's nice to have things to look forward to that aren't about the wedding.

Last month I had the contraceptive implant, I'm going to write a post about this at some point, but basically I was always forgetting to take my pill and I certainly don't want children any time soon. However I think it's also playing havoc with my hormones which certainly doesn't help when I'm trying not to lose my shit constantly. I've been having some serious back and chest acne appear out of no-where, which I think is stress related but this just adds to the worry of 'how will my wedding dress look' and 'will people notice' and bleerge.

I guess this post is basically just me telling myself that it's totally okay to be stressed out about everything to do with weddings. So many people think it's all fairy lights and cake and pretty dresses and you know what, it is, but it's also laced with panic and worries about self consciousness and ultimately what makes you, as a couple, happy. I have no doubt in my mind about marrying Nick, but being able to talk about all the things that terrify me helps.

I'm terrified of having our photograph taken all day, I'm terrified of all the attention being on us, as we are both very introverted people. I'm terrified about my make-up, my hair, my dress, what if on the day I feel like shit and will be captured in photographs this way forever more. I'm terrified of speaking my vows in front of people because I basically have word dyslexia and always mess up something. I know all of these fears are irrational and I'm sure on the day none of that stuff will matter but it's all there swimming around in my brain waiting to seep out when I'm feeling low.

But then on other days I push that all to the back of my mind and know that I'm excited, I'm excited about celebrating with all our friends and family and to drink and dance and have fun and those days are the days that I'm trying to cling onto at the minute. And that in 3 and a half months time it'll all be done and we'll be looking over the photos, laughing and smiling and reading cards of love and congratulations.

Well, that escalated quickly didn't it? ha! I guess I just needed to get some things off my chest. Hopefully I'm not the only one out there that feels this way sometimes and maybe now I've let it out, my mind can rest a little and relax.

I really hope that when it comes to my next wedding update post I have a few of these things sorted and not plaguing my mind.

Thanks for listening,

My Current 3 Inspirations For Blogging

If you've been blogging for awhile you will at some point have hit the inevitable bloggers block. As someone who tries to think of creative posts that doesn't involve buying stuff, this can be particularly tricky to get the creative juices flowing, especially as I like to post 3 times a week. So when I'm feeling like I  need some inspiration I start with the next three things that never fail me and I always come away with ideas whirling around the old noggin!

01. Listen to Podcasts.
As I've mentioned before in my recent top 5 favourite podcast post, I'm really into podcasts at the minute and if you combine this with blogging you have the perfect duo for inspiration. I didn't find any good blogging podcasts for a little while then all of a sudden I stumbled over a bunch that I felt I really needed to share.

Make it happen: A podcast by Jen Carrington: Jen interviews other bloggers and digital entrepreneurs and discusses all kind of topics from income, working too hard, believing in yourself, tips and tricks and generally just being awesome at doing your own thing online. This really inspires me to push myself creatively and think outside the box.

Ladies Who Lunch: This isn't a blogging podcast but it's two YouTubers talking about issues such as definitions of success, sexuality, personal identity, Feminism, online dating and so on. The topics and thoughts they have on these topics definitely inspire me to write about the things I'm passionate about and talking about more 'real issues' on my blog.

Ctrl Alt Delete: Again this an interview type of podcast, Emma interviews creatives from blogging, YouTube and Instagram. This podcast does talk about specific topics like working at Twitter, using social media and what it's like to go viral, so it's really good to pick out a topic you are interested in to learn and inspire you!

Filler: a creative industries podcast: You've probably noticed the theme already but this is again an interview style podcast, I find this one a little more varied and not specifically about blogging, which means you learn about some other creative fields.

I find learning about different kinds of topics makes me question more things, gain opinions and develop new interests which always helps get the cogs turning.


02. Take inspiration from your life.
Secondly, I love taking inspiration from my own life. Everyone has hobbies or interests and everyone's are different. I know for a fact that my interests shift all the time, sometimes I'm really into reading, or watching Netflix, other times I'm really into watching YouTube, listening to podcasts or chatting on twitter, so tailor your posts to your interests. Maybe you've just bought a new house, moved, got engaged, had surgery, suffer with mental health or started a new job, there are always things going on that you might not find interesting but could be really informative or helpful to someone else. For example I am currently in the process of planning my wedding, so I like to talk about it as it'll only happen once and people love hearing about things you do or don't want, what you've learnt or tips and tricks, it's always great to share things that help people get to know you better too, so don't be afraid to open up!


03. Write what you want to read. 
Then finally, reading other people's blogs. Now it's pretty obvious that reading other blogs can inspire you with themes or topics to talk about on your own blog however what I find inspiring is figuring out the topics in my feed that hasn't been covered, if that makes sense? So I tend to look for the missing things on my feed, the less covered topics or genres and get inspired that way. Or I see a topic that is covered more frequently but think of a way to make it different, for example my To Highlight or Not To Highlight, That is the Question post, highlighting is a very popular trend at the minute but I wanted to talk about it in a different format, a way that I hadn't seen it been talked about before.

I think this is a great way to take something you've talked about before or items you've owned for yonks but by putting a creative spin on it you can talk about it in a whole different way. Take a topic you've talked about before and do a brain storm with all the words you can think of to do with the topic and see if anything new comes up that you haven't thought about before! You can open up a bunch of new twists on old classics by just thinking outside of the box!


I really hope this post has given you some new avenues to explore if you are having a little writers block. I always find sitting down and really thinking about some of these ideas help inspire some new posts. I'm going to do some serious brain storming this weekend and get some new blog posts lined up for the coming month!

Please let me know what things inspire your blogging juices when you are feeling a little lost, as I would love to explore some new things myself!

The Importance of Defining Your Own Terms of Success.

I've been listening to the Ladies who Lunch podcast a lot recently and one of the topics about jealousy and envy really stood out to me. One of the things Ingrid said was that everyone has their own definition of success so we shouldn't compare ourselves to other peoples versions of success.

This is such an important topic when it comes to life and relationships but today I want to talk about this in terms of blogging.

The Forum: Bloggers Cocktail Masterclass.

When The Forum in Sheffield invited me along to the Bloggers Cocktail Masterclass event being excited was an understatement, learning to make cocktails with my blogger chums, whats not to love! 

I've been to a menu tasting event at The Forum before and it was a really good night, lovely hosts and great food and drink, so I knew it was going to be a good one!

Upon arrival we were greeted with a Gin & Elderflower Fizz which was really light and tasty, I love elderflower, so this was a great little start to the evening, I like the little spring of rosemary on the top, it added a little something extra smelling that as you drank it!



Then the first cocktail we were shown from the new menu was the Polish Espresso Martini, this is Polish vodka with coffee. For someone who isn't a massive coffee drinker this was quite strong on the coffee front, although I did enjoy it in small doses, I can imagine some people will love this at the start of a drinking session after work to perk them up a little!

After having a taste of this one we were taken for a little tour of the brewery they had next door. Firstly, I had no idea they actually had a brewery, I think it's pretty cool that they brew their own beer quite literally next door. Secondly, I think it was pretty cool getting to try some of the beer in the brewing stage, I'm not a fan of beer but I enjoyed tasting something that was brewing right in front of me. For any beer lover this is quite cool to know that something is being brewed so locally and can be purchased meer feet away.

After our little tour we were taken behind the bar to make our own Polish Espresso Martini, it was really fun getting to make some cocktails, I haven't made any since back in my uni days! I forgot how much you need to shake them at the end ha!



The professionals!

My attempt!

Then the next cocktail we were shown was the Candy Martini, this is definitely my favourite, it's very sweet but quite light and fruity. This has Licor 43 in it which is a Spanish Liqueur made from fruits and spices, then has fresh raspberries and pineapple added to it! This is such a good cocktail for summer, I can imagine drinking this out in the beer garden. I also think the added edible flower is so pretty, perfect instagrammable cocktails!

Then the final cocktail we were shown was the Lemon Cheesecake, I've got such a sweet tooth even when it comes to alcohol so this was also right up my street. This has Amaretto, Vodka, cream, lemon juice and Limoncello, which is a lemon liqueur, then to garnish they crumbled a digestive biscuit on the top. This is also really nice, my absolute favourite dessert is cheesecake so this was always going to be something that I love! The lemon was quite balanced with the sweet so it wasn't really bitter or anything like that. I also managed to nab a cheeky biscuit!



Then to make this evening pretty much perfect, Amber one of the event organiser came around with a Polaroid camera to take some snaps for us to take home, anyone that has read my blog for awhile knows Polaroid photography is my jam, so this was a perfect little addition to the night!

It was really fun tasting some of the new cocktails and getting to make them all! It was fun pairing up .and having a laugh spilling booze everywhere! I do have to say that the Candy Martini is my favourite and I might be heading back one date night to have another tasting..or three.

I absolutely love cocktails, so let me know what cocktails you enjoy for the summer months!





Twitter ~ Instagram ~ Bloglovin