Beauty and Fashion Haul!

Hey guys, today I have another haul post for you all - this time, it's all beauty and fashion related. I got a couple of things on sales and them some things were just items I'd been eyeing for some time and finally decided to get! Let's dive in, shall we? 

Urban Outfitters Scarf - £24.00
Forever21 Cream Gloves - £7.99

It's cold in the UK, really cold. Therefore, scarfs and gloves are pretty much a necessity in this country. This scarf is SO thick and warm, let me tell you! It's also really big so you could probably use it as a kind of shawl / wrap type thing if you wanted to as well!

Moroccanoil Volume Set - £25 @ Selfridges

I picked up this Moroccanoil set after spending some time debating about whether or not to purchase the oil that this set comes with. I'd heard a lot of good things about it but of course, a £25 bottle of oil is a purchase I needed to give some thought. When I spotted this one day in Selfridges for the same price I thought it was a win-win; I get to try the oil and 3 other products from the same brand too! Look out for a review on these items soon.

Vera Wang Princess Gift Set - £20 @ Debenhams

Vera Wang Princess is one my all time favourite scents. It does look a little, childish in terms of packaging the older you get, but I really love the scent and personally think that the smell itself isn't. Although I currently have a big bottle of this already, I spotted this set on sale in Debenhams for £20. The savvy shopper I am, I checked the perfume isle for the 30ml to check it's price and to my surprise, it was £40 on it's own! Therefore, I considered this too good an offer to miss and popped it straight in my basket!

Dr Martens - £110

Ah, I think these beauties speak for themselves - just look at them. I'd spotted this gorgeous pair of Dr Martens a while back and ever since I've been debating with myself whether or not to buy them. Finally, after standing around in the Dr Martens store looking awkward for quite a few minutes, I decided to just bite the bullet and buy them. The outcome? I LOVE them! Come on, LOOK AT THEM.

Okay, yes more shoes. I may have a huge teeny bit of a problem. However, in my defence these were on sale so I think my purchase was quite justified. Okay, so maybe I didn't need them but there were just £20.80 so I think for a pair of Converse, that's hard to walk away from. At least for me, anyway...

Collection Liners - £2.79
Rimmel Exaggerate Liners - £3.99
Rimmel Moisture Renew Liner - £3.99

Recently, I've been noticing that some of my lip products are bleeding a little and are not as long lasting as they could or should be. So, I decided to try out lip liners - which are something I'm not really a huge fan of. I tried to get some 'basic' colours so that I could use them with multiple lipsticks. I also got a clear one that I plan to compare to my clear liner from OCC!

MAC Lipstick in Violetta - £15.00
Urban Decay Lipstick in Anarchy - £15.00

 I picked up two lipstick from MAC and Urban Decay whilst browsing in Debenhams. I'm not crazy on MAC lipstick like I know a lot of people are, but I have a few shades which I think are something special and worth the price. This is one of them, it's a bright, pinky-purple shade that in the tube reminded me of Heroine a little bit - also from MAC. As well as that, I picked up my second Urban Decay lipstick - my first one, from the Pulp Fiction collection had the most the amazing formula and feel on the lips and I knew I wanted to try more.

OCC Lip Tar in Strumpet - £11.95

As you guys probably know, I'm a major OCC Lip Tar fan - I think they're amazing value for money and they're superb quality. I picked up this lovely, Winter appropriate colour from Selfridges and I really like it!

So, that's about it for this haul - I know it was a pretty long one. I hope you enjoyed this post and as always, thank you so much for reading!

OCC Lip Tar: A How To!

OCC Lip Tar's are a cult beauty product and more and more people are discovering their love for them. I'm definitely one of those people and over the last year or so, I've been obsessing over the wonder product that is lip tar! In this post, I thought I'd share with you my thoughts on OCC's infamous product as well as how to best apply it for the most comfortable and best looking wear.

Firstly, you may be wondering what exactly Lip Tar is: 

• Created by Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics (OCC), their lip tar is basically a liquid lipstick. 
• It is packaged in a sort of lip gloss-esque tube and it's highly and I mean highly pigmented. 
• You also only need the smallest amount for an opaque application - seriously, you need a tiny bit.
• In a full size Lip Tar, you get 10ml of product and let me tell, you will never run out of it - it's that pigmented and that concentrated. 

OCC makes their Lip Tar formulas in two finishes: Matte and Metallic. They have a whole host of colours available in both of these finishes from primary colours such as yellow and blue to bright neon pinks and dark blackened purples. There's truly a colour for everyone in my opinion - and if there's not, well you can actually make your own simply by mixing them together.

Now, let's get into the good stuff:

With every lip tar, you receive a mini lip pencil and believe me, you get this for a reason. You don't want to be applying this product straight from the nozzle without a brush because it's just not going to go well!

Being so darn liquid-y and rich in pigment, a brush is the best way to evenly distribute the product and ensure you get a precise application. It's also the best way to avoid mess and any potential bleeding or transfer of the lip tar onto your face or anywhere else (it can leave a temporary stain).

Being so highly concentrated, lip tar can tend to bleed if worn alone without any other products. To combat this I'd of course suggest the use of a brush, but I'd also suggest a lip liner too. I'm not really a major fan of lip liner personally so I don't really want to buy every colour under the sun and I don't always wear it if I can get away with it. So, a clear liner is perfect for me and is definitely something I'd recommend to you. OCC in fact, make a great clear liner called 'Anti-Feathered' that helps to do just that - stop your lip tar bleeding! OCC also make a clear lip primer in similar packaging to their Lip Tar which I find it conjunction with their liner is very effective.

** If you do make a mistake with the Lip Tar (which believe me, I always do) it's easy to tidy it up with a small, thin brush and some concealer. Trace the outline of your lip for a nice, clean edge and be sure to blend it out well! **

So, I think that pretty much covers the basics of Lip Tar and what to do with it... One last thing though: LESS is MORE! Use a bit at a time and you'll find applying Lip Tar way less of a daunting task - don't forget it takes the tiniest bit to make that colour super opaque and vibrant so don't feel like you have to pile it on!

And that my friends, is everything I wanted to cover in this post. Hopefully, you are now a little bit more knowledgable in the world of Lip Tar or perhaps I've simply managed to grab your interest to go ahead and try it out. Which by the way, you totally should! Lip Tar is awesome stuff.

OCC is primarily sold in the US so it's not as readily available for us in the UK. However there are stores that stock it with my personal favourite being Cocktail Cosmetics who sell products from a whole range of awesome indie makeup brands. Love Makeup also sell lip tar, as do Selfridges! OCC Lip Tar's range from around £11-£13 which considering how much you get and how little you need, is an absolute bargain in my eyes!

Thank you so much for reading this post, what are you thoughts on OCC's Lip Tars?

Review: OCC Metallic Lip Tar in Technopagan

 Hello! I'm here today bringing you a review - it's going to be of OCC's Lip Tar in the shade 'Technopagan'. I first tried lip tars a few months ago when I purchased the shade 'Hoochie' which is a beautiful, vibrant matte purple (a review of which you read here!). After trying that out, I fell in love with both the concept and use of the product itself and I knew I wanted to try more! After eyeing up this bold shade for a long time, I bit the bullet and got it and I have to say - I'm in love!

Technopagan is a bold blackened purple with a metallic finish. In the light however, it has more of a deep blue sheen with a kind of dark purple lining peaking through. It's on the cool side and has a beautiful shine to it. I'm not stranger the bold colours but this shade is definitely something new for me and that's definitely in a good way. I love alternative lip colours and this particular one definitely fits that category though at the same time I feel it is still strangely wearable (for me, anyway). 

Unsurpringly and as with all other Lip Tars, Technopagan is HIGHLY pigmented and a little bit goes a very long way - believe me! Unlike the others I've tried, the metallic formula seems to be a lot thicker but it still applies smoothly and evenly. It has more of matte kind of finish on the lips and doesn't have a sheen in the lip gloss kind of sense but this is instead due to it's metallic finish. I wouldn't say it feels drying on the lips which is definitely a good thing and in terms of creaminess, it's probably in the middle somewhere. Along the edges of the lips it does kind of fade out to a sort of pink-purple outline which may mean you need to build up the colour a little but it's an effect I happen to really like.

In terms of staying power, this product is a winner! As I've found with the other 2 lip tars I own, the staying power is awesome. I wore this product for a whole day complete with eating, drinking and general chit chat and this guy stayed put. No smudging, no streaking and it still maintained that intense pigment. 

Overall, I'm really impressed with this Lip Tar and I'm absolutely in love with the colour and finish of it. I think this may just be my new favourite lip product right now and I desperately wanna try some more OCC Lip Tar's because they're honestly just that good.

I got my Lip Tar from Love Makeup for £12.00!

Have you tried any of the OCC Lip Tars?! What do you guys think of them? I'd love to know!

What I Got For My Birthday - Beauty.

Hey guys! In this post, I thought I'd share with you some of the gifts I received for my birthday. My birthday was on Sunday and I got some really lovely and thoughtful gifts and I'm so grateful and excited to use them! 

Generally, I'm not one to buy higher end beauty products on a regular basis - I like to ask for them as a gifts or to treat myself with them. That's because I'm a believer that you can get high quality products with a smaller price tag and higher end products are also more difficult to access locally for me. However, their are definitely some amazing higher end items out there really worth the money and so I always have a good think about them and so sometimes I'll treat myself or pick out items as gifts that I've been seriously lusting over or think are worth buying. With all that said, I'm going to show you what I got - and I want to just point out (been said so many times before, I know) that I'm not bragging, just simply sharing. So.. yeah let's get into the post already.

So, firstly I received to lip items from my brother. I gave him a few selections of lip items I'd been really wanting to own and he then chose some of them. He got me MAC's Heroine which is an absolutely gorgeous blue-toned purple. Purple is my favourite colour and I've never really found the perfect shade until I saw this. I wore it for my birthday and I absolutely love it. Bold lipsticks are totally my thing and I know I'll be getting a lot of wear out of this one.

He also got me an OCC Lip Tar in the colour Stalker. I have one other lip tar in the shade Hoochie and I LOVE it. You get so much product (seriously) that the price is totally justified for me. Not only that, the are long lasting and such good quality that I'd pay £11.95 (Cocktail Cosmetics) all day long! This colour is a gloss kind of finish, it's not an in your face gloss though and it's a really lovely true red colour.

I treated myself a little bit of my birthday too and I took a trip to Debenhams and bought myself the Urban Decay Electric palette. I love the UD Naked palettes and after seeing this a few months ago, I've been really wanting to get it. The colour are beautiful and I fell in love after swatching them in store. I was kind of uncertain on getting it, bigger purchases require a lot of thought from me but after swatching and getting a closer look I just kinda had to. The colours are so pigmented and I cannot wait to do a look with this palette as well as reviewing on here - keep an eye out!

I also took a trip to Lush, I find them kind of expensive with certain products but I really enjoy their bath bombs and bath melts. So, I got a few of those - I got the Comforter which is one of my favourites, the Butterball and finally the Candy Bar melt which smells delicious!

The Comforter

Candy Bar

I was gifted the Ray of Sunshine gift box which is also from Lush and it's one I've had quite a few times before. You get four items in this particular box and I love the fresh, citrus scents they all have - so good.

Hair care is kind of a big deal to me, it's a process I actually kind of enjoy and using nice hair products just makes me feel really pampered. BED HEAD by TIGI is a brand I've only used a few times but everything I have ever used I've really enjoyed. They're kind of pricey hence why I don't buy from them frequently but all the stuff I have ever used has always felt and smelt so darn good. The products I got from them for my birthday are no different - they are the Colour Goddess shampoo and condition and they came in this massive 750ml bottle! For a higher-end brand, these came in a decent priced twin gift set and they smell so delicious - seriously, I'm tempted to eat this stuff. This particular range is for colour treated hair and is infused with natural oils so I'm excited to give this a go and see how it does with my hair.

The last thing I got that was beauty related was another hair product. I got a pair of Remington curling tongs which are 19mm in length. I got these specifically with vintage hair styles in mind as this is the perfect sized barrel to do pin curls with and i've been wanting to them for a long time. I'm particularly excited to give these a try because I've got quite a few hairstyles in mind.

That's everything I received that falls into the beauty category. Thank you so much for reading and do let me know if you'd like a review on of these items in particular!