Let's start with the star of the show, the biggest bargain and ultimate find. Of course i'm talking about the YSL Shocking False Lash Effect Eyeliner (£24), which I picked up for just £12.99! It seems TkMaxx have had some amazing back log of beauty products, as my local one had all sorts of high end brands including Nars, Burberry and I even found a MAC lipgloss, but I didn't like the shade. I also almost got myself a YSL foundation, until I opened it to find it was the darkest shade going, but do pop into your local store just to see what you can find. 

Moving onto the stationary and i've needed a new notebook for a while now. I spotted a few different designs by Emma Bridgewater which really caught my eye and I ended up picking up the Black Toast Hatch A5 Notebook (£10) and again this was a bargain at £4.99. 

The last piece I picked up I found in the clearance section due to a slight fault but i'd been wanting something to store my letters and business cards in for a while so when I saw this Hold Everything Letter Organiser. It's the perfect size for me and the four different compartments will really help to organise my desk area a little more. 

Have you found any bargains in TkMaxx recently?

Starting with the Marc Jacobs Honey, which I used up the last of just before I went on holiday and it's safe to say it is my favourite fragrance ever. To be honest a lot of the perfumes were so expensive in duty free, but luckily the smaller bottle of this I could justify especially as I knew i'd love it and i'm so glad to have it back in my life, and I can now replace the empty bottle on my shelf.

I was so excited when I saw that they had MAC in duty free and I just had to pick up a few new MAC Lipsticks. Initially I wanted the shade 'Show Orchid' but it was sold out, so instead I picked up 'Up The Amp' and 'Full Fuschia'. Both lipsticks have the amplified finish, which I love as they are both pigmented and creamy. I will do a review of these at some point, where you can see swatches and what not, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

So that is everything I got in duty free, and i'm so happy with what I managed to pick up.

Have you picked up anything from duty free recently? Or just treated yourself in general? 

I've never been one to appreciate or get into The Body Shop and the only products i've ever owned are the ones of gift sets that i've been given for Christmas and Birthdays, but with a few products floating around the blogosphere recently I decided to give them a chance, as such.

The first product I picked up was the Honey Bronzing Powder, which i'd seen a few bloggers talking about and after swatching this I could see exactly why. It's matte formula works so well to add a natural amount of bronze to my complexion that doesn't look orange at all. I picked this up in medium matte, and is available in four shades total so it would work for most skintones. The next product I picked up mainly because one of the sales assistants told me about an offer, where if I spent £22 on makeup and/or skincare I got a goodie bag containing £25 worth of products for free so obviously I was going to take advantage of this! So I popped over to the skincare and grabbed the Camomile Cleansing Butter as i've heard this to be a dupe of the Emma Hardie Cleansing Balm, which i've never tried but i'll always try a cheaper alternative before splurging, and so far i'm really liking this. So onto to the products within the goodie bag, first up is the Big & Curvy Mascara which is said to be their best selling mascara and I actually really like this, it works well to add some length and curl to my lashes without them being clumpy. Also inlcuded was a sample of the Vitamin E Cream Cleanser, which i've literally fallen in love with. Cream cleansers are my skins favourite and i'll definitely be picking up a full size of this when i've finished this one. Also sticking with the Vitamin E range, a Vitamin E Moisutre Mask was also within the goodie bag which I can't wait to try out. Lastly within the goodie bag was the Eye Definer Pencil, which i've been using most of the week to line my upper water line (not sure what that is called) to define my lashes and it works really well whilst staying put most of the day.

All in all I was pretty impressed with the service the shop assistant provided as she was so helpful and as it was my first time going into Body Shop it definitely made me want to return, which probably won't be so good for my bank account. Unfortunately the goodie bag offer ended the day that I purchased these products, but i'm sure they will do something like this again in the future.

Have you made any Body Shop purchases recently?

So we started out down South Bank, where we walked along the river to Tate, which was so much bigger than I was expecting, we spent ages in there taking photo's and getting inspiration but it's worth a visit if you haven't been before. We then ended up somewhere near bank underground station and by this point we were starving so we popped into this little cafe called Apostrophe, which was actually really nice! I had the thickest hot chocolate ever, it was like drinking melted chocolate! After we'd sorted out our starvation we hopped on the tube down to Chelsea to visit the Saatchi Gallery where we saw this amazing exhibition by Richard Wilson, which was basically this room full of oil, it was so still and almost calming in a way. If you ever find yourself near Sloanes Square I honestly recommend popping into Saatchi to see it. After that we walked into the square of shops just around the back of the gallery and found a Zara with the biggest sale ever. We also popped into Space NK on our way back to the station but luckily I stopped myself from purchasing anything. After that we retreated to Oxford St to visit &Other Stories and a few other shops before stopping for some dinner in B-Soho, a little pizzeria just off Oxford St which was really tasty. After that we headed back to Marylebone to get the train home and I got myself a white hot chocolate from the AMT coffee hut in the station. It was honestly the best white hot chocolate i've ever tasted!

Now onto my purchases, I thought i'd throw these in at the end as it wasn't really enough for a separate haul post. In Zara I noticed this Zara Basic Shoulder Bag reduced down to £19.99 and as it was the last one I nabbed it off the shelf straight away. As we were in London we had to visit &Other Stories, where I picked up the Punk Bouquet Body Scrub, which smells so good. I also picked up two of their nail varnishes, Moire Green which is a very light green & Etamine Lavender which is your typical lavender shade but a little darker. Also I spotted that they stock Eborian so I got myself another one of their BB Creme Light as I loved using it during the summer. We also popped into Pixi so I could finally get my hands on the Pixi Glow Tonic, which they don't have in the pump bottles anymore. As we were on Oxford St we popped into this little newsagents that Beckie knew of that sells all of the fashion magazines that you can normally pick up in Selfridges, so I picked up a few for research and design inspo. As for gallery shopping I picked up a few things to put into my fmp research such as post cards and this really cool book which I believe is called Poemotion 1. I also picked up this cute little 'Love' Plaque from the Saatchi Gallery and I thought it would look really cute around my desk area.

The first thing I picked up isn't actually a skincare product as such but one i'd wanted to try for a few weeks and that is the new Rimmel Stay Matte Foundation. With my skin being really dry all of my foundations were sticking to every bit of dry skin making it so much more noticeable and a few people had said to me that this product doesn't cling to dry skin at all, so yeah.. I bought it. 

Now onto the skincare products, the first thing I picked up was the Boots Botanics All Bright Cleansing Foam Wash. I've heard some great things about Boots own skincare range and this product is said to gently cleanse away impurities leaving the skin smoother and brighter. As i'd only been using one cleanser I think my skin had basically got used to it, so I picked this up to add into my skincare and i'll use this in rotation of my other cleanser. Next up I spotted the Boots Botanics Ultra Calm Skin Calming Day Cream SPF15. As my skin has been so dry lately whenever I have tried to moisturise, it has left my skin with an unbearable burning sensation almost as if my skin has been irritated and this product is described as skin calming I grabbed it to inspect further and I ended up buying it. I used this last night, as I didn't want to buy both the day and night cream and when I woke up this morning my skin looked and felt so much better. Lastly, I needed some new face wipes as I always like to have some just incase and I noticed the Nivea Gentle Cleansing Facial Wipes for Dry Skin were reduced. I've been using their primer from this range and as that works miracles on my dry skin I thought these were less likely to irritate any dry areas, being formulated for dry skin and all that.

So that is my little Boots haul, I will be reporting back on all of these products as I want to start featuring more skincare products on my blog.

Have you tried any of these products?

So the first thing I picked up was this Black Embossed Top, which is the hardest thing to photograph ever so sorry if it's a little hard to see but I just loved the subtle embossed wallpaper print on the front. This is slightly cropped and I thought it would work really well with my MOM jeans to slightly dress them up. (Just a quick note I picked up a size 6, so I think this is supposed to be oversized or they've got the sizes really wrong). The next thing I picked up was this cute Floral Monochrome Jumper, which I instantly fell in love with. Again I thought this was a really cute piece to pair with my MOM jeans seeing as i'm living in them at the minute. Whilst I was browsing around, I noticed a bunch of beanies in the men's section all priced at £3 (cheaper than women's beanies) so I picked up two, the first being this Green Speckled Knit Beanie and the second being this Wintery Bobble Beanie. I find that I prefer mens beanies as they are slightly bigger and fit my head more comfortably than the women's ones! Sticking with winter accessories, I literally scoured the whole shop for the tartan scarves i'd seen on quite a few blogs and I eventually found them. Unfortunately they only had this Black & White Tartan Scarf, which I really like but I will still be hunting down the red/green ones! Lastly I picked up some Silver Stacking Rings (not photographed) as i've wanted some for ages and these seemed like a good deal, five rings for £3.. bargain!

So that is everything I picked up from Primark! 

Have you found any good bits in Primark recently?

Now I know I only posted a haul the other day, but yesterday I met up with my friend Amber and being the shopaholics that we are I picked up a few bits that are ideal for summer so I thought i'd share them with you :)

The first thing I picked up was this beautiful H&M lace dress, which i'm planning to wear to Wireless Festival next weekend. It's really loose fitting and comes a few inches above my knee, perfect for summer! The only thing that is a little annoying, is that the slip underneath is super see through so i'm going to have wear something underneath. Also from H&M I picked up these super cute midi rings, which came in a pack of 15 for £3.99, what a bargain! I've been wanting some midi rings for ages now so i'm pretty happy I found these! The last thing I picked up was this gorgeous River Island dress, which was reduced to £20 in the sale! I managed to pick up one of the last in my size and it fit's so nicely as it's really flattering.
Unfortunately I can't find any of these items online, so if you're looking to pick them up head into your local stores.

Have you read my June Roundup, which I posted earlier this morning?

As you can see I didn't buy that much, which for me is quite impressive but I did get some right bargains! Starting with the Topshop Platforms, oh my god I have had my eye on these for ages and I was gutted when I saw them go into the sale with only size 8 and 9 left, but I popped into Topshop at Merry Hill yesterday and they had about four pairs of size 6's.. you can imagine my excitement and they were reduced to £40 from £55 so if you've got your eye on these head down to your local Topshop!

Sticking with shoes onto the Primark Gladiator Sandals. I wanted to get some cheapy sandals and Primark seemed like the best bet for this and I was right, you wouldn't believe these were from Primark would you?! They stock these in three colours, black, tan and white which is the colour I picked up as the tan were practically all gone, but for £12 i'm really pleased with these.

Next is this beautiful Primark Purse which I spotted whilst I was browsing the bags and accessories which looked just like River Island purses so I snapped up one of those quickly as i've been needing a new purse for a while and for £5 I thought that was a bargain!

Finally I was browsing the Topshop Makeup as my local Topshop doesn't stock that much of the makeup range and I noticed that the Sunbeam Highlighter was priced at £6 and I know it's priced at £10 online so that inclined me to pick it up and I have been wanting it for a while, so I will be reviewing that for you all soonish.

Did you make any payday splurges yesterday?

Hello everyone, sorry I didn't post yesterday I was so tired after my first day at Miss Selfridge I just had no energy, but I can report back that I am enjoying my placement so far. I've been collating images from all the fashion week shows and then creating boards today for the design team to use as inspiration for the A/W 2013 season, exciting stuff!

Anyway onto my post today and... it's another haul, yippeee!!

Fragrance Direct

My friend Jess introduced me to Fragrance Direct and their very low discounted prices on all sorts of brands so I decided to place a small order of some products I've wanted to try out for a while. 

As you can see I didn't go mad but I bought enough things to add to my little collection of Topshop Makeup.

Starting with the lipsticks, so many bloggers rave about these lipsticks from the range of shades to the duration the lipsticks last on your lips throughout the day and of course this meant that I needed to try these out. The lipstick section was quite crammed but I was able to swatch a few shades on my hands before deciding on the shades I wanted. I picked up 'Beguiled' which is a deep plum red shade which I fell in love with as I can never find the right deep red and this was just perfect for me. The next shade I picked up was 'Innocent' which, the name says it all it is an innocent light pink shade which isn't too bright and is subtle enough for me to wear as bright pinks really do not suit my skin tone what so ever.

Onto the nail varnishes, I already own a couple of shades from the Topshop Nails range and I love them, they apply so easily with just a couple of coats and last a really decent amount of time. I decided I would pick up a couple of shades that I don't already own in different brands as I thought it would be pretty pointless buying shades I already had.. Anyway, the shades I picked up were 'Stolen Sapphires' which is a really deep purple tone and I instantly fell in love when I saw the shade as I have never been able to find a deep purple that didn't look black so I thought this was perfect and from the swatch it shows this. The next shade I picked up was 'Awol' which is kind of darker pastel blue (so hard to explain) and I thought it would be perfect to wear in all seasons, it's very hard to find a nail varnish that can be worn all throughout the year!

Phew, that was a lot of writing. I hope you all liked this post!

Do you own any products from the Topshop Makeup range?

xx