Product Review - Loreal Infaillible Eyeliner

This product is en route to becoming the old favourite in my make up bag. It's black, it's soft, and I'm never hunting for a pencil sharpener. It's perfect for smokey, smudgey top liner, or just a quick sweep along your waterline. You can go for the all-out, full-circle rock chick, or you can draw and rub out and draw and rub out and draw and rub out until you get this season's perfect cat flick. It has a rubber on the end, which pulls out to reveal a wee sharpener as well, so you can always look sharp.

It's such a versatile product with great pigmenting, and for once, the name infaillible is pretty much true. I can put this on before going out for the evening and still look passable when I drag my sleepy self into work the next day. If only I could find a mascara that would treat me so well!
Literally the best eyeliner I have ever owned, and it retails for around a £5 in high street chemists. What's not to love?
Are there any products which you buy over and over and over again?

Things I Can't Buy Until Payday

1. alarm clock necklace from oliveclothing.com 2. gold starfish wrap ring from shopdixi.com 3. converse hi tops 4. uniqone all in one hair treatment

I have a really bad habit of wanting things that I can't afford. Well, to be fair, it's more about wanting more things than I can afford. I spend some spare pennies in the first week or two after payday, and then by week three I'm still seeing more things but have to exercise my self control and keep my bank card where it belongs! Having already picked out two dresses from Apricot (and a pair of leggings so I could get free delivery!), scouring some charity shops and getting a more-than-healthy dose of Primark (shorts and socks for Rockness and a new swimsuit, sans frills, for the gym), all my spare cash has been used up.

1. I saw this necklace this morning and it's just too cute! I've stopped wearing a watch in the last few months and I can never be bothered getting my phone out my pocket! I do know where all the clocks are around town but this will be handy for when there isn't one nearby.

2. I don't own a lot of rings, and certainly none in gold, but I quite like this one. It looks like a cuddle for your finger! Something a bit different. I've been doing my nails a bit more recently so it's nice to have the rest of my digits decorated too!

3. I'm desparate for new cons - all the pairs I already own have gone through the sole, so they suck right now. It may be the middle of summer but it's damp and miserable every single day and too warm for boots. I like these maroon ones. I have lots of red clothes, but the bright ones get grubby a little too fast.

4. This All-In-One hair mask from Uniqone is one of the better hair products I have tried out. It's like a leave in conditioner but it has all kinds of different benefits from your hair. I got the sample version in my Glossybox a few months ago and I absolutely loved it! I sprayed lots in before blow drying, and it made it so much easier to get my hair smooth and straight, without having to stop every two seconds to tease out a tangle.

I'm also in the market for a deep conditioning hair mask. I've just had a trim at the hair dresser but I'm still concerned about dry ends and heat damage - my fringe means I have to blow dry pretty much every time I wash my hair, which sucks, but I really like the style so I'm not giving up on it just yet. If anyone has any good recommendations, I would love to hear them!

Love and kisses

Dermablend Corrective Foundation Cream Stick - Review

My Glossybox arrived today! I haven't done many product reviews in the past but there have been a few things coming through in the last couple of months that I've really enjoyed using. Today's post is about something in this month's box, however. I'll go back and cover some other products in the next couple of weeks, I hope.

Anyway, today I am reviewing Dermablend's Corrective Foundation Cream Stick. It claims to camouflage minor to severe skin flaws, including dark circles, blemishes and excessive redness. I tend not to suffer from excessive redness except when I've had a glass of wine or two, and although I am dedicated to the cause, I have no wine in the house this evening so I couldn't test it for that. I do, however, have a big red spot on my chin. I know right, sexy. Just wait til you see it.

Now, I'm being a little bit brave here. I'm about to show you a photo of what I look like bare-faced. Well, it's not that brave, since I usually wake up too late to do more than sweep on some mascara. But anyway. Brace yourselves.

How you doin'?

So that's what I look like with no make up. Picture was taken in daylight, but it was on the reverse camera side of my phone. I'm sorry, I don't have great tools to work with. Maybe I should get a DSLR for my birthday... 

As you can see, my sexy spot is pretty visible. So I wapped out my new Dermablend stuff (wap is a technical term). I picked Porcelain, which was the lightest one, because I'm pretty pale. I used the tip of one finger to apply some of the cream to my spot, following the instructions for "moderate skin flaws", and I also dabbed some on a few other spots, and under my eyes, where I followed the instructions for pronounced dark circles, although I'm not too shadowy, just a bit baggy in that area. 

Come here often?

This was the result. That big spot is far less obvious, and the wee spots on the other side of my chin have also become a bit more discreet. The circles under my eyes are gone but I also look quite flat - partly due to the lighting as well I imagine. I was pretty impressed by the coverage I got on the big spot. And I probably could have done with a wee bit more on the other side, but over all, a little seems to go a pretty long way.

I then applied my normal foundation over the top on my cheeks and nose and the rest of my chin, which is how I would probably wear the make up on a day-to-day basis. Well not very day, but you know what I mean. 

As you can see, the redness of my spots is completely gone with the Dermablend concealer, much better than with my regular foundation (I use Loreal True Match in Golden Ivory, which I love). Obviously, the spot is still a bit of a bump, so it's not totally invisible, but it doesn't draw your attention in the same way - at least not in real life anyway! There's not a great deal of difference with the dark shadows, but like I said, those aren't a great problem for me in the first place.

I also wanted to know how long wearing the product is. I would have liked to wait the full 16 hours that the product recommended, but it's the evening and I'm lazy. I also touch my face a lot, so I thought it was probably unlikely that I would go 16 whole hours on any day without considering a retouch. Maybe if my make up was tattooed on I might give that a go.

Oh alright, if you insist, you can buy me a drink.

So here I am two hours later after a trip to the hair dresser. Lots of face-touching involved - all those tiny bits of hair! I also caught myself rubbing at the spot before I went out (I do that all the time, it's 'cause they're bumpy!) but resisted the urge to retouch the make up. This was a true to life experiment people!! Overall, it's not that bad, I have to say. I think it's still better than my usual foundation-only approach, and of course it's much better than the bare-faced look.

Overall, I would definitely recommend the product to someone looking to cover up the occasional annoying spot, like me. It covered the redness really well, and it's pretty hard wearing, which is important for fidgety face-touchers! The only think I didn't like was that the little blister packs can't be resealed. That's obviously not a problem if you decide to buy the full size product, but I hope to test it out a few more times before I decide whether or not to invest. I sealed it with selotape instead, because that's how I roll.

And since you're probably all dying to see it, now that I've mentioned it, here's my new haircut. And my kitchen. I'm channelling Cleopatra right now. Or Jessie J.

If you get Glossybox, did you get the concealer? I'd love to know how other people found it, especially if they've tested it for more than just two hours!

Love and hugs

*EDIT* People still occasionally seem to be reading this post, so I thought I'd better update. I wore the concealer on my chin every day for about a week because it was so good at covering that spot, I thought I'd keep going until it was gone. Unfortunately the weight of the product caused the rest of my chin to break out big style. This product gives great coverage, but I would say only to use it for a special occasion, rather than frequent, every day wear.

National Museum of Scotland

You will have noticed, dear reader (if any of you are still out there?) that regular blogging is not my forte. However, I have eventually returned with another offering.

Last week I took a trip to the National Museum of Scotland, recently reopened in my own fair city after a long refurbishment process. Anyone who visited the museum in the past will no doubt remember the fish pond? Alas, it has been removed. Perhaps all the fish were dying of copper poisoning... who knows.

But the refurbishment is great. I wish I'd had a better camera with me, although I still don't think it could capture the incredible space in the main gallery. It's a huge airy chamber with a glass roof, four floors high, with all of the display galleries branching off it. It's the kind of room I'd love to get married in - it feels like light and air, very uplifting. Like a cathedral but brighter.

So no pictures of that because I really couldn't do it justice, but one of the exhibits everyone's been talking about is the tyrannosaurus rex skeleton and indeed it's very impressive.

It's in the gallery which used to have (if I remember right) the skeleton of some enormous sea creature. But it's been so long since I went before the refurbishment that I don't really know for sure.



That gallery is also four stories high, but it's smaller, and the lighting is lower to preserve the taxidermies and things. And instead of that single massive creature that I only half remember, they now have a whole parade of watery creatures, including the ocean sunfish, with whom I made friends.


I also quite liked the painted stork - but you'll have to forgive the glassy reflections of my snazzy pink camera phone!


In the geology section, looking at how the Earth was formed and rocks from space and things, they had this enormous geode, full of purple crystals, which was formed by cooling lava. The bubble shapes cooled and solidified first, but the heat evaporated whatever solute was present, leaving these beauties to form on the inside of the shell. Incredible.


And the last thing that caught my eye was this slice of iron meteorite with "Widmanstätten patterns" on it. They're formed by the presence of nickel-iron alloys which cool over MILLIONS of years to form these big visible crystals, which you can only see when you slice and polish an iron meteorite. And because it takes so long to form, we can't produce them in a lab and they are proof of the extraterrestrial nature of an object - they're like as old as the Earth's core.

The museum also has lots of exhibits of foreign cultures which didn't interest me nearly so much as the natural history, and also some sculptures, including Greek and Roman ones, up at the top of the main gallery, on the top floor, which I enjoyed because I've studied Classics and I knew what they were about.

The Chambers Street section of museum has displays of British and Scottish historical artefacts which I didn't look at on this trip but which are definitely worth a look.

In fact the whole place is is worth a look - set aside an afternoon, or a whole day if you want to read through everything in the place. There's something for everyone, wherever your museum-based interests might lie, and this is really only the tip of the iceberg.

Love and hugs

Scottish Ballet at the Playhouse

Last night, I had an absolute treat! I 'splashed out' on a student ticket for the Scottish Ballet's programme at the Playhouse, part of the Edinburgh Festival. It's the first time since I started studying ballet and taking a firm interest in it that I've seen any live ballet, so don't expect an expert's opinion! Not that you would of course, you know me too well for that dear reader.

The first piece was a brand new piece called Kings 2 Ends, which was choreographed by Jorma Elo, specifically for the company. Set to music by Mozart and Steve Reich, this is a beautiful work of art, and although not a narrative piece, tells a different story to each individual who sees it. I adored the pas de trois in the third section, and the pas de deux sections danced by Noellie Conjeaud and Teun van Roosmalen (above) were incredibly fluid and well co-ordinated, although all the couples were beautiful.


The second piece, Song of the Earth, was choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan in 1965 and explores the idea of mortality as a young man struggles with it in his life and in his relationships - the link above the McMillan's website explains the whole thing a lot better than I could! I have to admit, I didn't read the narrative description before I watched the piece - I had no money for the programme - so my own interpretation whilst I was watching it was somewhat different - I saw two best friends and a beloved sister. However, I don't think that detracted anything at all from my enjoyment of the piece, which showcased some excellent dancing from the male danseurs, and some incredible pas de trois from the three soloists, Erik Cavallri, Adam Blyde and Sophie Martin. The music was Mahler's Das Leid von der Erde (the Song from the Earth), which is a beautiful song-cycle, translated from eighth century Chinese poetry into German. The music was performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, led by Sian Edwards, with Katrina Karneus and Peter Wedd as the soloists.


All pictures are from the Scottish Ballet website, taken by Andrew Ross. They have a few more production photos of these two pieces in their gallery there and also on their flikr photostream.

Love and hugs

The Tongue Hotel

My younger brother, Andrew, had his last day at work yesterday, so in order to celebrate his freedom we went for lunch at the Tongue Hotel with my parents. It's about 100 yards down the road so it was about 20 seconds walk, and there was no one else in the restaurant when we arrived (which is nothing against them, its just that this is the middle of nowhere and people don't "do lunch" on a Thursday.

We had two courses each but it was a bit of a jumble.

Andrew had a smoked salmon starter and a steak and ale pie with mash and veg and a side of chips (glutton! And he couldn't eat them all).


Dad had a smoked salmon bagel and then cranachan for dessert. For those who don't know, its made of raspberries, whipped cream (sweetened if you like), oatmeal and usually some whisky too, and it's absolutely delicious!


Mum had potato and leek soup with crusty bread and then a warm chocolate muffin with cream.


And I had a roast beef sandwich and then a piece of white chocolate and marshmallow cheesecake. The menu had said toblerone cheesecake but they'd only just made that and it hadn't set yet, so I got a bit of yesterday's instead, but the chef put two triangles of toblerone on as garnish to make up for it. No complaints here!

Edinburgh Festival

Tongue is gorgeous today dear (imaginary) readers. Beautiful weather. And yet still I didn't go out. I sat in the house in joggers and did very little all day. Mum and I made pasta salad. And I did some work towards a research proposal. Don't ask me who I'm going to propose it to, I haven't figured that out yet.

So instead of trying to eek out a post from my boring day, I thought today I'd post for you about a much more exciting day that I had at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival before I came up north.

In the afternoon, I went with my best friend, her mum and brother, and my other best friend (yes I'm 22 years old and I still have best friends) to see a show called Potted Potter which was on at the Pleasance.

Really enjoyed the show - it was very funny, and very Harry Potter, so unless you are a big fan of Hazza P, or you are a child, then it might not be to your taste. But to Potter fans I recommend it most highly, I'm sure you'll enjoy the incredible dragon, the epic story telling, and your very own game of Quidditch!

After the show we went for something to eat at the Tron - don't get a baked potato - and then we went off in search of some free comedy. There is quite a lot of free comedy around the High Street/Cowgate area, and if you just wander around people tend to give you flyers for things that are starting soon and send you in the right direction. After umming and erring and trying to chose between a few things, we ended up at 2Facedbook 2 by a guy called Jools Constant at Sin Club and Lounge.


This was really good too. A bottle of beer was £2.50, not too bad, and the guy was pretty funny. He ripped me to shreds for being a posh girl because I knew what a duck island is. If you don't know, google it.

After that we went back to the Tron to meet some of our other friends and by chance got offered free tickets to see another show. The basement bar in the Tron turns into a venue during the festival called Just The Tonic at the Tron for various comedy shows. We got tickets to see Get Happy in Edinburgh and the hosts called it a "working mens club" and had us playing darts, downing pints, and watching burlesque dancers. There was some weird stuff too but it was all pretty funny. The last act of the night was this bizarre comedian, something like Mr Bean but not quite. I got his flyer but I left it in Edinburgh - very sad :( he was really funny and I feel he deserves mention!

After that show we hung around in the basement and we saw this other show, called Set List which has apparently moved to the Caves, probably because it was awesome and they wanted more space.


This was funny too. There was a line up of different comedians, and each of them got a set list of topics which they had never seen before, including some audience suggestions, and they had to do a five minute set based around this material. Some of them were really really funny, including one lady who wasn't even doing a fringe show this year she just wanted to perform for a laugh. I really wish I had a note of everyone's names! If I was an entertainment blogger I'd be far more professional than this. Never mind.

After that we went to the Hive and I met this guy:


who is in this show: The Joker.

I haven't seen the show but may be going when I get back home. He was really nice anyway, and when I saw him on the telly he was quite funny so I hope I do get to see it!

Any of my dear (imaginary) readers seen anything in the fringe this year? Or anything you've heard of that's decent and not too expensive?