Best of Skin Care 2016

Eye Make-Up Remover

This eye make-up remover is one of the few that removes my eye make-up without me having to rub vigorously at my lids. I just shake the bottle to mix & saturate two cotton pads, leave on my eyes for a few seconds & wipe away. At €3 from most pharmacies its easy to find, lasts for ages & doesn't break the bank.

Make-Up Remover

This make-up remover is micellar water mixed with oil & it removes every scrap of make-up off my face. I soak one of the large cotton pads & sweep across my face. This bottle has lasted me for months. It says that it is for dry/normal (my skin would be quite dry) but it doesn't leave any residue on the skin, so might work for all skin types. €6 from most pharmacies, but I actually picked mine up from Penneys/Primark.

Facial Cleanser

After I've removed my make-up with the micellar water I usually deep cleanse with Simple's Kind to Skin Moisturising Facial Wash. I don't have particularly sensitive skin, but I do find that alot of other foaming cleansers dry my skin out too much & leave it feeling uncomfortably tight. This removes any traces of make-up which I may have left behind without the uncomfortable feeling. I got mine from Tesco when the whole Simple range was half price.

Toner

Pixi's Glow Tonic is my absolute Holy Grail skincare product. My skin's texture has improved so much since using this product. The Glow Tonic is an exfoliating toner, so it removes dead skin cells to reveal the brighter skin underneath. As it contains 5% Glycolic Acid you will have to slowly build up to using this neat on the skin. I started using it on damp cotton rounds for the first week or so. I use this every evening now & it makes my dull, dry skin so much brighter & the next morning my make-up goes on smoother. £18 on Cult Beauty.

Facial Exfoliator

I received The Dr. Brandt Pore Dermabrasion in a Birchbox, so it was only a sample size, but it has been the best exfoliator I used in 2016. It has tiny granules which slough away the dead skin cells leaving incredibly smooth skin underneath. A tiny bit goes a long way, so as I only use it around once a week a small tube lasts for ages. £43 from Birchbox.

Lip Scrub

The smell of this lip scrub is delicious (safe to eat as well!) The granules are course enough to make a difference & it leaves behind a slightly oily residue which moisturises the lips. £5.50 from Lush.

Serum

This has more of a lotion consistency than a typical serum. It doesn't give me enough hydration by itself, but this gives my skin an extra boost of moisture underneath my normal moisturiser. Great also as a primer before foundation. I've gone through multiple tubes of this & I will keep repurchasing.€3.50 from Penneys/Primark.

Eye Cream

I use two different eye creams, one for the morning & a different one for the evening. My morning one is Caudalie's "Premier Cru- The Eye Cream", this has a nice light consistency but still moisturises & smooths under the eyes. It also doesn't have any adverse effects with any make-up applied over it. Benefits "It's Potent" eye cream is a bit richer so I apply it in the evening after I've removed my make-up. Since using this cream I've noticed a huge difference in the texture of my under eyes & also the appearance of some of the fine lines. Caudalie Premier Cru as part of a kit from Cult Beauty. Benefits It's Potent €26 from Sam McAuleys.

Facial Moisturiser

I have yet to find my perfect moisturiser, but this one from Simple has been the best so far. Its easy to layer with other products & doesn't leave a residue on the skin or clog the pores. I mainly use this as a night cream, but works well under make-up too (if you have dry skin). €5 from pharmacies.

Facial Spray

This is without a doubt the best facial spray I've tried. It contains Argan Oil & is great underneath my moisturiser for an extra boost or for spraying over make-up when my foundation looks dry or cakey. I love it so much... but it breaks me out... I get small little red bumps on my forehead when I use this, easy to cover up with make-up & usually disappear after using a detoxing face mask. But it does mean that I don't use it every day. Its such a good product that I'm going to persevere using it & hopefully my skin will adjust to it as I'm not usually prone to breakouts. £18 Cult Beauty. 

PS... Pro Range

Primark has had a beauty/make-up range called "PS... Beauty" but they have recently launched a premium range called "PS... Pro" which promises high quality, professional products at a value price.

I decided to try some of the products out after hearing great reviews from the likes of Celebrity Make-Up Artist Wayne Goss.

My local Primark is very small, so the selection of the PS... Pro products wasn't great, that & a lot of the products had been opened & used. But I managed to pick up a few unopened bits & pieces to try.

The first product I picked up was the Longwear Mineralized Foundation, which comes in a frosted glass bottle and a pump applicator. There was only two shades available,the very lightest & the very darkest. I settled on the very lightest, which turns out is a shade too light for me but can be warmed up with a bit of bronzer. This foundation was €6, and was amazing! It has SPF 15 & Vitamins A & B. The initial smell wasn't great but this soon wore off. This foundation is medium to high coverage that's buildable & can be applied using either a brush or a beauty blender, I used a beauty blender to sheer the coverage out slightly as on my skin it's VERY high coverage.

This foundation is much better than more pricier ones, covered all blemishes & lasted 10+ hours on my skin. As my skin is very dry I didn't powder & it dried down to a comfortable satin finish. If you have oily skin you may want to powder though. I will definitely e purchasing this foundation again

This was my first time using a lip scrub, it has a subtle vanilla fragarance & smells good enough to eat. As I have long nails I wasn't able to apply with my fingers, instead I used a cotton bud & then massaged into lips. 

At first the texture was very grainy but as I rubbed it in the graininess disappeared leaving a Vaseline like substance behind so I had little hopes for much exfoliation. But when I rinsed it all off I was left with incredibly smooth lips with no flakiness, at €3.50 this is a product I would definitely purchase again as I wear matte liquid lipsticks most days & need a smooth base.

The PS... Pro lip primer is also €3.50, but it's not as good as the other products. It does not go on smoothly for me & leaves a white cast on the lips. It's almost painful to apply as it drags on the lips depositing very little product. I much prefer the Colourpop primer as it glides on smoothly & is about the same price.

For me the stand-out product is the foundation, it feels more like a luxury product than a budget one. But I would give the Lip Primer a miss, there are better performing primers around within the same price range.

Primark Make-Up Review

After seeing a lot about the new range of "Ps Beauty" I decided to try them for myself. The shade I picked was a deep plum colour to help ease myself into a darker Autumn/Winter palette.

First up is the Lip Liner at only €1.50 in colour "Plum". The pencil gave a nice crisp line around the edge of the lips, but wasn't as soft as some other brands when it came to filling in the lips, so it did drag a bit.

After filling in my lips with pencil, I applied the all over lipstick "Ladies Day". At €2 the lipstick is a matte, long lasting formula, which like the lip pencil does not glide over the lips, the consistency feels very dry & it tends to drag the skin. However when it is applied, it is long lasting. I wore the pencil/lipstick combo for a full day & only had to re-apply once (after eating).

Cons: The consistency is very dry & drags the skin as it is applied.

Pros: The price is definitely one of the biggest pluses, €3.50 for both is an unbelievable bargain. Long lasting, which is very important with such a strong, dark colour. The colour was exactly the plum shade I had been looking for & will be perfect for the up coming autumn colour palette.

Penneys Individual Falsh Eyelashes

I generally go for strip lashes when I'm applying false lashes but after hearing Rosie Connolly from Hearts Heels & Handbags talking on Snap Chat about how to apply the Penneys individual false lashes I thought I would give it a go... 

At only €1.50 you can't really go wrong; the Penneys strip lashes are also €1.50, great value for Saturday night lashes. But for important or posher events I prefer the Eyelure Petite lashes.

So this is me before, wearing only Rimmel mascara (no other make-up):

I didn't use the lash glue which came with the lashes as I can very sensitive skin, so I used Duo lash glue which I know doesn't give me any reaction. 

-First I applied mascara & let it dry

-Then I squeezed a small bit of Duo glue on to a pallet 

-I took one of the longest lash groups with a pair of tweezers & dipped the end into the glue

-I then applied directly on top of my lashes in the outside corner

-As I worked my way in towards the corner of my eye I used shorter lashes

-In total I used approximately three groups of the longest lashes, two of the medium & two of the short.

So I definitely found applying them a lot more fiddly than the strip lashes... I'm definitely going to need more practice applying them. For me the effect wasn't dramatic enough for a Saturday night, but for during the day they do give a nicer effect than just mascara.