Cupcake

Have you ever been in desperate need of applying a face mask, but decided against it because you just don’t have enough time to apply it, wait for it to dry and wash it off before going about your day?  If that sound about right, then fear not my friends – for the mighty Lush have just the facemask for those times!

Cupcake is one of my go to face masks from Lush, which I manged to pick up free back in May when I returned five clean black pots to my local store.  It’s a fresh face mask – meaning that you have to keep it in the fridge for the best results.  Because of this, I find that any time I am able to pop into store, it’s tend to be one of the ones that sells out the fastest, so I always miss out.  Thankfully though, I popped in on a Wednesday – a Lush delivery day (yay) – so I managed to bag myself this old friend.

Two of my favourite things in this world are mint and chocolate, so after reading all about the different fresh face masks that Lush have to offer (you can read about Catastrophe Cosmetic here) – Cupcake stood out to me for this exact reason.  Packed with cocoa butter, mint and cocoa powder this thick and creamy mask promises to draw out dirt and impurities, as well as giving your face a deep cleansing experience.  Thankfully, my skin has been pretty good to me for the last few months after I switched up my diet a bit – so I don’t have to worry about major breakouts for the mean time.  I did however fancy a real good cleansing experience, and so since my other other options at that time of day were Rosy Cheeks and Don’t Look At Me – which evidently are two which I have tried in the past which I have enjoyed but not repurchased since – I decided that Cupcake would do the job just nicely for me on this particular occasion.

Like I said before, this is a really thick and creamy mask – so as you apply it takes a lot of rubbing in to get the maximum coverage from the amount you are putting on.  This of course is not a bad thing, as it allows you to rub in the minty goodness, and gives your skin a real tingly and cleansing experience at the same time!  I like to use Cupcake all over my face and give my skin a generous coating with each application – however I think it would work perfectly well for a treatment a across the tea zone or other problem areas too if preferred.  Now for the good bit, it only take around five minutes for Cupcake too do its magic and start to dry up on your face, so depending on how much time you have to spare, you can have this bad boy off and left with glowing skin in a total of just 10 minutes top!  Although I tend to leave mine on for an extra five when I have the time – I promise that five is enough time to give you that “just cleaned” sensation! 

What I love the most about Cupcake is that it really does give my skin a proper good cleansing – I always feel that my pores have had a good clean with every use, and it doesn’t take any time at all to get the results.  It’s definitely one that I will purchase myself again in the future – and it’s so good that I’m even prepared to pay for it and use my black pots for a different mask next time!

What’s your favourite fresh face mask right now?

Until the next one,

Cruelty Free Makeup

So if you read my June Lust List post from a couple of weeks past, you’ll know that I was starting to look into ensuring that all of my cosmetics and beauty purchases are cruelty free.  I’ve been a vegetarian for 8 months now, and I recently discovered that the majority of the brands that I use on a day to day basis are far from being suitable for vegetarians.  I have no idea why, but it had honestly never crossed my mind to look into this sooner.  I had assumed that testing on animals didn’t happen anymore – however that couldn’t be further from the truth.  So with this new information, I took it upon myself to do some research and went ahead and made all of the relevant changes.

The majority of my new make-up buys took the form of the Superdrug B. range – as this is a brand that I have used in the past and very much enjoyed!  Not only is this brand cruelty free, but they also pride themselves in being 100% suitable for vegans, which is pretty impressive for a relatively new brand.  Covering everything from nail polish to foundation to pallets – they legit have something for everyone regardless of their skin tone, type and preferred finish!

There was four items that I needed and two items I wanted: foundation, mascara, blusher and press powder being the needs and highlighter and concealer being the wants.  I picked a great time to decide to update my cosmetics too – as the B. make-up was marked down by 50%!  My first stop was the mascara – as I saw they only had the two varieties to choose from – waterproof or not.  As I had selected the non water proof and was scanning through the range – I spied an eye make-up palette that contained four eye shadows, a brow kit and a full size mascara for just £4.99.  The mascara I had in my hand cost £4.99 alone – so of course I wasn’t going to say no to that!  I’m not a eye shadow gal myself, and I’m not really in any need for a new brow kit – but this will keep until I run out making it a win-win situation! 

Next was the press powder – which is one of the items I’ve used in the past and have been very pleased with.   Packaged in a little compact format with a mirror for application, I picked this gem up for just £3.99 – which pleases me greatly as it is so big that I know this will do me for a solid month at least.

Blush was my next go to, however I became slightly distracted by another one of the face palette.  £4.99 for a reasonable sizing of press powder, foundation, concealer and highlighter – I got so excited by this that I actually forgot to pick up my blush and had to do another trip the next day.

As my closest store was all out of the foundations of the B. range – which is not surprising as these giant bottles were only £4.99 during this promotion (!) – I took a quick trip into the Superdrug in town the next day to see if I could get lucky.  Unfortunately it was the same story in this store too, however I did find myself a few gems that I could have missed out on had I not made the visit!

After a quick Google search when I was in store, I was delighted to find that Barry M are a cruelty free brand.  The packaging on the Flawless Matte Finish really appealed to me, and they had the most perfect shade for me too, so I just had to pick it up for the £5.99.  Back to the B. range and I was able to pick up their Whipped Blush for £3.99 as well as a Prepared Blemish Control Primer (£4.99) and a Beauty Blender (£4.99) – making my whole make up bag transformation a total of just £34.99 – which is really impressive considering that these are all high quality products that do not promote animal testing!

I’ll get round to telling you all a little but more about the products at some point in the near future, but for now I just wanted to show you all how easy it is to make the change when you do just a little bit of research – and that by making the change it doesn’t have to break the bank!  Some companies will charge up to £30 for one singular product – so the fact that I got my entire make up bag for just an extra £4.99 is something to brag about!

Have you tried out any of the B. range yet?  What’s your favourite?

Until the next one,

7 Things I Love and Hate about Retail

I’ve been working in retail since the age of 16.  I’m 21 now, so that is five long ass years where I have had the pleasure of working with the public.  I’m getting to the point in my life now where I am ready to start a career for myself doing the things I love the most – media, writing, PR and or possibly even marketing.  I’ve been studying media for the last three years, and I’m keen to get myself stuck into it whenever a possibility shows itself.  I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to share the things that I love and hate about working in retail.

How I feel after a long day at work...

1.    Depending on what kind of retail you’re working in, unfortunately most of us we are working real hard for basically the minimum wage.  And some days, I mean working really hard.  Be it standing at checkouts for a nine hour shift on a super busy day, or running around on the floor helping customers and following the orders of management – just because we work in a shop does NOT mean we’ve got it easy.

2.   A fab perk about retail though is that we normally get a pretty decent staff discount.  That pretty bed spread you bought yourself the other day?  I treated myself to the same one also – with a nice sum taken off the total at the checkout too.

3.     Unless you are one of the very few and lucky ones, those of us in retail tend to have to work most if not the majority of weekends throughout the year.  Those lush bank holiday weekends everyone gushes over?  We’re probably working extra-long shifts to compensate for your long weekend shopping, so don’t fight us if we don’t seem too thrilled as we go about our business in store.

4.   We do however receive plenty of days off during the week to compensate this.  Some weeks I can have three days off and still manage to bag myself 28 hours of work.  Although of course I would love to enjoy every weekend to myself, it is really nice to break my week up with a day or two off here and there – and it’s even nicer when the sun is shining and everyone in the office is online complaining that they are missing out!

5.    Members of the public can be SO RUDE sometimes.  And by sometimes,  I mean it’s very rare that a day at work goes by when I’ve not had someone be extremely rude to me or another member of staff throughout the day.  It’s so bad, and it makes me so mad that people think it’s okay to come into a store and verbally abuse someone because they’ve not been given exactly what they wanted.  I’m terribly sorry about your awful experience with the store/item/price – but unless you’re willing to talk to me and not down at me, then I’ll be very reluctant to help you to my full potential.  I will NEVER speak to anyone the way I’ve been spoken to by a few individuals.  

6.   That being said though, it totally makes my day when I get to speak to the loveliest of people throughout the day, the ones who generally are thankful for your help and want to chat about non work related things.  Especially when it’s been a really rubbish or stressful day – you people who take the time to make conversation and say please and thank you to us while we are working really do give me hope for humanity.  You people are the best.

7.   I’ve met some of the greatest people I know through working in retail (and some of the most annoying – but I won’t get into that now).  Although it isn’t always fun and games in store, I reckon that retail is probably a lot more relaxed than some careers – and you’ve got a much better opportunity to get to know the people you’re working alongside with, especially on those grave time shifts.

And again!

So there you have it, although I’m getting excited about the idea of starting a new chapter in my work life in the near or late future – retail actually has a lot of perks for all of the rubbish things we sometimes need to deal with.  Although I'm probably just in a bit of a slump about my job at the moment, I've actually really enjoyed a lot of the time I've spent working in retail, and dare I say it, there is a good chance there will be a few more laughs before the end too!

What’s your favourite thing to love and hate in your job?

Until the next one,