Archive for April 2012

You may remember when I attended Sheffield Meadowhall’s Blogger Style School last month we were set a 10 minute make-up challenge at the Bellapierre counter in Debenhams. Well after a vote on the Meadowhall’s Facebook page I was voted winner of the challenge and crowned the Meadowhall’s Top Style Blogger for Spring Summer 2012! The win was a total shock, but a totally amazing one because it meant I was given lot’s lovely make-up products to try from the brands we visited on the day, AND I was given a few goodies to give away to my lovely readers!

Bellapierre is a totally new brand to me and I love the fact that there is natutal & organic. I’ve also not had much experience with mineral make-up, but after a tutorial and talk from Joanne from Bellapierre at the Meadowhall Shopping Centre I soon fell in love wit the fact that make-up should actually aid in looking after your skin. Bellapierre's mineral make-up diminishes fine lines and helps skin become more youthful!

The champagne eyeshadow is my favourite product! I love to use it as a highlighter on my brow bone, in the inner corner of my eye, on my cheek as a highlight, even dabbed lightly over the moisturising Vanilla Bean lip balm to add a bit of shimmer to my lips! You can see it blended with the Deja Vous shimmer eyeshadow in my crease, which I also used a blush, in the pictures above. The Eyeliner / Brow Brush is really amazing too, the angled taklon bristles make applying eyeliner and filling in your brows a breeze!

Giveaway!!

So I’ve got some core items from the Bellapierre Cosmetics range to give away to one lucky reader!! One of you could win a goody bag containing the following:

Vanilla Bean Lip Balm, Mineral Eyeshadow in Campagne, Lash Building Mascara, Eyeliner/ Brow Brush and a stunning Ruby Lipstick (all products in the picture below!)

To be in with a chance of winning all you’ve got to do is:

* Follow Charlotte’s Collection via GFC

* Leave a comment below with someway for me to contact you if you win

* For an extra chance to win follow me on Twitter (@CharlCollection) and tweet ‘@CharlCollection is having a giveaway! Visit www.charlottescollection.co.uk for a chance to a win!’

The winner be picked at random from all the comments and tweets – no duplicate entries please, each person has up to chances of winning! Entries close at midnight GMT Friday 18^th May 2012.

Good luck!!

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The natural edition! Natural or not I love this months box! I love the rustic look to the 100% biodegradable box, and of the course, the re-assurance that this months box is a little more environmentally friendly... Though I re-use all my boxes for storage, we all know that the Glossybox comes with a lot of packaging! The Natural theme obviously carries through to the products, which are all either natural, organic, or both! I think it's great that the Glossy team have surprised us with another themed box!

One sentence that I've got to repeat, as repeated with the January, February AND March Glossyboxes, I got another body lotion!! The Burt's Bees Naturally Nourishing Milk & Honey Body Lotion. I've never actually tried any Burt's Bees products, but heard lots about them so I'm really pleased to have received this. It smells amazing too! I suppose moisturisers were a mini theme for my box this month as I received two more! I'm really going to enjoy using the Caudalie Vinosiurce SOS Thirst-Quenching Serum and the Monu Professional Skincare Moisture Risch Collagen Cream. These products are both geared towards dry skin, I've mentioned in other posts that I've got quite oily skin, but recently I've felt my skin is feeling quite dehydrated, so I'm very open to trying new things to combat it.

A lot of people received the INIKA Certified Organic Eyeliner. I noticed that there are a variety of colours of this creamy pencil and I'm really pleased I received mine in number 12 Purple Minx, a rich plum which is very wearable and actually one of my favourite colours to wear. Finally, I received the Cherry & Vanilla flavour of the Figs & Rouge Lips, face and Body Balm. I love the retro packaging of this balm, it's so pretty! 100% organic I know I'm really going to enjoy using this product too. It's quite gooey and oily - once you've swiped your finger through it a few times, so I think it will work really well dry patches of skin. I like how it's won't just be restricted to use on my lips!

So all in all I don't think there's an item that I'm not pleased with and won't use from my April Glossybox! Result!

Did you receive a Glossybox, or another subscription box? What did you think? Link me your blog posts below!

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If I had to choose only one make-up product to wear for the rest of my days, yes ONE, I could quite honestly say that it would have to be a bronzer! I love a bit of bronze! The Soleil Tan De Chanel has been on my radar for so long now, but as most beauty addicts know, it had totally disappeared from the face of the earth for near on six months! Well as you can see, I managed to get my mitts on it!

I happened to be passing the Chanel counter in Boots back in March when I saw the Soleil Tan De Chanel, shining at me like a beacon! So I coughed up close to £30 and walked away feeling very happy with myself!

The presentation of this product is impeccable, a beautiful swirl of luxurious dense mousse with the most delicious smell ever - it reminds me of peaches! The main thing that reviews point out about that Soleil Tan De Chanel is that it's super orangey. Maybe I've just got different expectations about bronzer, but I'm definitely no Jersey Shore wannabe and I've not noticed I look in anyway tango-ed after application! This product is actually a base, so you can wear it under your foundation if orange tones concern the very fair among us. However I've found that I really need to build with this to get the sun-kissed glow that I'm used to, not a bad thing to be honest though! The finish is stunning though, I'm loving all cream to powder products at the moment, so easy to work with.

To apply I switch between the Real Techniques Contour and Buffing brushes. The contour brush is pretty small so I use this more when I want sculptured cheeks and precision contouring. On those days when I want that all over glow, or am just being very lazy and want to buff in the Soleil Tan De Chanel quickly (most days!) I'll use the buffing brush. The dense bristles of these Real Technique are perfect for the thick mousse texture of this product.

A note on the price... I do think that it's expensive. It's a really lovely product, which I'm going to be very happy to use up to the bitter end. I'd also happily repurchase, but at the end of the day I don't think it's a necessity, must have item. The price tag is for the Chanel name in my opinion. You could get the exact same look most lower end brand, and probably a look more tailored to your own skin tone.

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I read hundreds and hundreds of fashion and beauty blogs! One thing I’ve noticed that we all have in common - other than a healthy obsession with clothes and make-up – is a love of beautiful home décor! We all love to scrapbook our dream homes, or the latest find for own. One blogger whose interior design posts always draw me in is Miss Lucy Loves… our dream style is exactly the same! Like her I love a lot of white, particularly the crisp white wall look, with lots of stunning statement furniture, a lot of wood, cosy fabrics and the odd pop of colour!

In their latest lookbook Fashion For Home have captured my ideal home perfectly, I’ve found the pictures (adoringly borrowed for this post from Fashion For Home) so inspiring! The boy and I are looking to put our house on the market this summer, so house hunting and the excitement of having some place fresh and new to put my stamp on has started me on the road of collecting inspiration images and collating wishlists!

Aiming to bring beautifully stylish designer furniture to those of us without the designer budgets, Fashion For Home's online store is full of the stunning quality furniture that I love. Retro 20’s, 50’s and 70’s style sofa’s, heavy duty wooden coffee tables, and desks, innovative and interesting shelving designs and elegant antique style mirrors are all made even more affordable with free shipping and free returns (to most of the UK)! Furniture shopping made even easier and worry free!

I stumbled across most of the pieces from the wishlist I've featured above whilst drooling over the stunning images in the Fashion For Home lookbook. I love how the gorgeous white and green stripped ottoman (1) could be made a wonderful feature in a bright, white painted room. It would really standout against lots of light furniture. The amazingly affordable brightly coloured oil painting (3) would have the exact same effect. Beautiful! I'm also absolutely desperate for a single classic leather armchair. I love everything about this traditional curved 1920's style chair (2), I think that it would look stunning mixed amongst some more modern pieces, particularly a blinged out lamp or light fitting (6) and set beside an interesting, and just as retro coffee table (4).

What do you guys think of my dream home decor style and the items on my interior design wishlist? Let me know how you would like to decorate your dream home? I'm always on the look out for fresh inspiration!!

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* This post was written in collaboration with Fashion For Home

I'm getting more and more interested in natural products the more and more I get into beauty and skincare. Korres is a brand I've always been interested in for this reason but never tried because it's not exactly cheap... until I spotted it in TK Maxx! Oh how I love this shop, with these 4 items I saved £59 off the RRP!

A quick note on the packaging. I absolute love the simple rustic - recycled look to the packaging, even with an overload of writing (mainly Greek, from this Athens based company), it's so clear as to what the ingredients and 'formula facts' are... paraben free and suitable for vegans to name a few! Also the expiration date is clearly visible, something I haven't noticed with other brands, it's very useful!

I've been using the Wild Rose Brightening & Line Smoothing Serum every morning underneath my moisturiser (though it can be used alone) and instantly noticed a brightening effect, perfect. Let's hope it also prevents fine lines as it says... I don't really know how you can properly review any 'preventative effects'! I picked up the the Cinnamon & Natural Clay Deep Cleansing Mask for Oily Skin with Imperfection mainly because my skin was just that! I've always had oily skin, and probably always will, but I've had a few spots recently so thought this may help as the clay, cinnamon and zinc ingredients work to control sebum secretion. I've been using this once a week, though I've not noticed any long term effects, this mask is just lovely. Instantly giving a cool tingly feeling to the skin, I love the fresh and very clean feeling I'm left with. I generally use this at night and whack on a night cream/ serum straight after, so it's hard to tell, but I'm sure my skin is ever so slightly less oily when I wake up the next morning!

With the highest RRP £39, I had the highest expectations for the Quercetin & Oak Antiageing & Antiwrinkle Light Texture Cream for oily skin. The packaging goes into detail about how Oak derived Quercetin reduces free radicals reverts aged cells to a 'younger' state. Sounds good! For something geared towards oily skin this feels slightly sticky when first applied, but it does soak in nicely for a very moisturising, but not necessary lightweight (on my skin at least) feel.

The Pomegranate Oily to Combination Cleansing Mask is a less intense version of the Cinnamon & Clay Mask, it smells amazing and leaves my skin feeling very clean. It's not as 'cooling' as the Cinnamon mask either, but seems to leave my face a lot more comfortable and little less stripped of sebum.

Overall I love the brand's commitment to natural and organic products, it's surely got to be better for your skin in the long term than anything packed with chemicals! I really want to try some more stuff of theirs now. Have you tried Korres? Is there anything from the Korres line that you would recommend?

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I'm a bit of a bag junkie and was beyond excited to discover customisable bags when the lovely girls at Clippy London contacted me to tell me about the unique range created by this independent company.

For those of you who haven't heard of Clippy, the concept came about when creator Calypso started displaying her fave polaroid pictures in a bag. When people started admiring her new creation she went into production and Clippy London became a stall on Portobello Road, growing in popularity ever since!

It's so much fun being able to swap and change my bags design, depending on my mood and any interesting pictures I happen to stumble across. As you can see I was in a bit of girly mood for my trip to York today, and had gone for pictures of holidays to Rome and Malta, flowers, flags, and pretty clippings from magazines! I also received a pretty silver trimmed make-up bag, where the pockets for inserting pictures are also dead handy for storing small, loose bits of make-up. I'm next going to check out the style your own clutch bags and pencil cases, they're so cute and look amazing personalised with magazine covers.

A quick note on the rest of my outfit, I don't know about the rest of the country, but the temperature has really dropped again in Yorkshire! It feels like a lifetime ago that we had the crazy high temperatures in March! I am determined to make the most of my disco pants and get out of the mind frame of only wearing them on nights out. Because they're quite thick the cooler weather has allowed me to wear them more during the day at least!

I wanted to end on an exciting note on the Clippy bags, the lovely Calypso has kindly offered all my readers free delivery with any order from the Clippy range! All you have to do is enter the code CHBLOG before you check out. So check out their website! The offer is valid until the end of May 2012.

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I thought this was a funny outtake, what on earth is going on with my hand! I think I was trying to get my hair out of my face, it was a very windy day in York!

When an e-mail from the fabulous Bethanie Lunn, author and Meadowhall's fashion & beauty expert, landed in my mailbox with an invite to a Blogger Style School, I was not only very excited about a day jammed packed with tutorials and insider tips from top make-up brands, but also the prospect of an event up north! Sheffield's Meadowhall is a massive shopping centre, so Bethanie had plenty of amazing beauty brands to keep us occupied on our tour of what the centre has to offer.

We started the day bright and early, so of course, headed straight to Starbucks for a much needed coffee and muffin, and an opportunity to have a proper get to know you with my follow bloggers Hayley (Plaid & Lace), Nicky (Nicky Valentine), Claire (Jazzpad), Rose (Mixed Gems) and Katie (Pouting In Heels).

Our first stop was No7 at Boots. While a make-up artist demonstrated the bright lips and smokey eyes look on Nicky, Caroline talked us through the history of this well know British brand, some of their most famous products (we all remember the queues for the clinically proven serum Protect & Perfect!), as well as introducing us to newer products. No7 is a brand that I've enjoyed for some time, aided by the regular £5 off vouchers, so I was very excited to receive a goody bag containing lots of fabulous goodies to try! I'm most excited about the beautiful new Poppy King Lip Crayons and Beautiful Skin BB Cream. Keep an eye out for lots of reviews coming soon!

While in Boots we were also introduced to their 'latest finds' stand, something that you can find nationwide but I've never noticed before in stores myself! It's definitely worth checking out next time you're in the store, I'm going to be going back to check out Peptalash, for longer fuller lashes, and imPRESS, amazing press on nail polish!

From Boots it was straight to Debenhams where the wonderful Glen was waiting for us at the Illamasqua stand. I have to admit that Illamasqua is a brand I've never tried. Perhaps as make-up for your alter ego, the colours and collection images always seem a bit too 'out there' for me... demonstrated by the very daring make-up lady wearing green eyeshadow, bright cheeks and turquoise lips! Glen however proved with a quick tutorial on Rose that the brand could be very diverse, I fell in love with the Sophie-i technique, don't you think Rose's eye's looked great!!

Our final stop was House of Fraser and the Bellapierre counter, where I was exposed to even more beauty newness! Bellapierre is a natural and organic mineral make-up company with the message that their make-up enhances natural beauty by diminishing fine lines and imperfections, creating a more youthful appearance over time. Joanne talked us through the Bellapierre range, where one product acts as a foundation, concealer and powder! Also, did you know these amazing pigments can be used as eyeshadow, eyeliner, lipstick, blusher, highlight and even a nail polish? Just add water, lipbalm or clear nail polish!

After a very tasty, and very filling spinach and lentil burger at the Handmade Burger Co. it was time for us bloggers to put all that we had learnt into practice with a challenge back at Bellapierre. Nervously, we recreated the 'Marilyn' make-up look with a flawless face, champagne eyeshadow, winged eyeliner and a bright lip... all in 10 minutes! Cue the frantic make-up application pictures above! Well, after a vote on the Meadowhall Facebook page, I was crowned the winner!! I am now Meadowhall's Top Style Blogger for spring summer 2012! :)

Wow! What a mammoth post! I hope it's been worth the though, I'd especially like you to keep your eyes open for a giveaway! As a thanks for everyones votes in the style challenge, I've been given lots of lovely goodies to giveaway from the three brands visited, and more, in our whirlwind tour of Meadowhall! So stay tuned!

*Most images are my own but some were borrowed from the Meadowhall Facebook page :)