Guest Post: How to spot clean + deep clean your makeup brushes!

Today's post is a guest post from Alice at THE STYLE OF LONDON who has written a fab post about how to spot clean and deep clean your makeup brushes!

I decided to do a post on how to clean your brushes as this seems to be a question that comes up quite a lot in conversation among a range of people including some of my friends. The main queries seem to be what products to use, how often to do it and how to physically wash them. I will be answering all these questions below so read on if you want to know more and feel free to let me know any other ideas you have for washing your brushes.

There are lots different ways you can wash your brushes and a mixture of views out there on the best way to do it. This can make it difficult to decide how to clean them and I will be showing the way that I have personally have found works best for me.   

Firstly – what you will need:

Deep clean:

Makeup brushes

Towel

Johnsons Baby Shampoo

A Sink

Spot clean:

Tissue Paper

Brush cleaner (MAC does a good one)

How to clean them

Deep clean

Firstly, grab your dirty makeup brushes and bring them to your sink or bowl of warm water. Soak the tips of the brushes completely in water. Then pour a small drop of the baby shampoo onto the palm of your hand, dip the tip of the brush into this and move the brush back and forth across your fingers until the water runs clear. It is best to try not to wash the brushes too close to the handle as it could loosen the glue that holds the bristles in place. Then gently wipe your brush onto your towel to take out some excess water and rest the brushes with the tip facing off the towel so that they will air dry.

I have also heard from a variety of sources that it is bad to dry your brushes with the tip facing upright as the water will get stuck inside the brush and so it is either best to dry them with the brush side facing downwards or to lay them flat.

 Spot Clean

Spot cleaning is great for when you want to quickly use a different colour with the same brush, and don’t want to wait for ages for your brushes to dry. To do this you just need to spray a bit of your brush cleaner on tissue paper and then in a downwards motion, gently brush the bristles across the tissue paper till all of the colour has gone. If I do not have brush cleaner I will sometimes use my makeup wipes to quickly take the colour off my brushes, and have found this works well too.

Have you got any other tips or ways you feel have worked best to get your brushes clean?

How often to clean them

It really depends on how much you use your brushes. If your brushes get dirty really quickly then it might be best to do a deep clean once a week. Because I tend to spot clean quite a bit between brush uses, I don’t feel the need to deep clean my brushes this often. I don’t have a particular day I clean my brushes, I just clean them when I feel like it needs doing. But, if I was to put a date on it I would say I deep clean my brushes around once a month and spot clean after every other use. How often do you think is best to clean your brushes?

I hope you all enjoyed my guest post and it has been helpful for some of you!

Alice x

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Coral Nail Obsession

Hello Everyone!

Summer is fast approaching (I can't believe next month is June!) and with that comes bright colours! Let's just say I'm a little more adventurous with colour on my nails rather than in clothes but I have began adding some colourful pieces of clothing to my wardrobe for summer! One colour I'm really loving at the moment is coral/orange and have acquired quite a few items of clothes (including my new jacket which I love!) and nail polish. Prior to March I didn't own any coral would you believe, and now I have four! They're not all exactly coral, but they are all in the orange colour family so I went with coral for the ease of the post title haha.

Here are the current four I own! 

L-R - Cute as a button, Bouquet, Terracotta, Sunday Funday

L-R: Cute as a button, Bouquet, Terracotta, Sunday Funday

♥ Essie 'Cute as a button' - This one is the perfect mix of pink and orange, resulting in this bright-yet-not-neon shade. If there's one out of this lot you need, it's this one! I've already talked about this in my top products for March so you can read that *here* if you'd like to know more

♥ Dior 'Bouquet' - I really don't own anything like this, it's a beautiful light peachy orange shade which, once again, I've talked about in it's own review which you can read *here*

♥ Orly 'Terracotta' - This is a newbie. I ordered this along with another shade (NOTD coming soon with it!) from Fragrance Direct for the bargain price of £2.99! Considering this is a brand you'll often seen among the likes of OPI, I was very happy to say the least!  This is definitely not terracotta, it's a bright orange which has some strong red undertones. Perfect if you want a super bright shade.

♥ Essie 'Sunday Funday' - I'd describe this as a pretty much straight up orange with has some peachy tones going on to keep it from looking 'neon'. This one contains very subtle silver shimmer which is perfect for the summer as it looks lovely and shimmery in the sun! When I got this along with Cute as a button, I thought they were really similar but that's couldn't be further from the truth!

I really wish my camera would pick up them up true to colour, it's always a problem when photographing nail polish I find, very annoying, so I definitely recommend you check them out in person to see exactly what they look like!

Have you been loving any particular colours recently?

Jessica

xox

Nails: Dior 'Bouquet'

Hi Everyone! ♥

I had never been to into Dior previously, I didn't look into their collections or anything like that until one day a few months ago I saw the images for their Spring collection. Now, if you've been reading my blog for a while you know I have a bit huge thing for all things nails, so naturally my eye was drawn to them first. I loved all the colours knew I had to get one as experience has taught me to never leave something you love if it's limited edition! Despite this, I didn't buy any straight away as obviously they are expensive so I wanted to make sure I got the right colour. Fast forward a month or two (yes, very indecisive!) I decided to purchase the shade 'Bouquet' one I fell in love with instantly and settled on because I have nothing like it. Rambling into aside, here's the low down on this gorgeous shade...

Sorry for my ravaged cuticles - they are in dire need of some TLC!

The bottle has a silver mirrored, removable cap with 'CD' embossed on the top. Underneath, it reveals a much smaller black lid which you actually use to paint your nails with - the silver lid makes a satisfying 'click' upon closing which, I suppose I'm strange, I really like haha. The brush is quite short wide with a  rounded tip, this makes it really easy to paint your nails. As the brush is quite dense, it picks up quite a lot of polish which is good if you have long nails, but I prefer to wipe the majority off so it isn't as messy for me! The above picture is with two coats I believe (was a few weeks ago) but I wore it the other day and I did put two coats on.

The only disappointment was it wasn't as long lasting as other Dior polish reviews claimed, however that's not to say it chips quickly, this worked out pretty average for me, 4-ish days chip free. Then again, maybe it's just my nails as everyone claims Chanel chips horrendously, but it lasts amazingly on me! The colour is such a gorgeous peachy orange which leans very slightly pink, the picture really doesn't capture the colour perfectly unfortunately. I seem to be loving peach/coral/orange nails at the moment!

I'm kind of tempted to pick up another shade, but one looks to be quite dupable and the other is baby blue which is gorgeous but I'm not sure how much I would wear it. I love the matte frost effect top coat too, but again I'm not sure how much I'd wear it but we'll see!

What do you think of this colour? It just screams Spring to me!

Jessica

xox

Astral All Over Moisturiser

Hi Everyone! I have been super MIA over on here and all my social media and unfortunately that won't change for a while as I am currently doing my GCSE exams! I've had four already and since I had a morning one today I thought I would type up this post and schedule a few more while I have a little more time than usual!

A few weeks ago I was asked to try out Astral cream, which surprisingly I had never even heard of before. The benefits all sounded really great so I was eager to try this out! I've been using this for the past few weeks and I'm now ready to report back what I thought of it!

Upon first hearing about Astral, I thought it would be just like any other cream on the market but after trying it out I've been pleasantly surprised. First off, the consistency is really lovely, hopefully you can see in the second picture how it has a sort of whipped mousse look to it and it feels really thick and creamy. I mainly used this as an all over body moisturiser as although it can be used on the face, I just know it would be much to heavy for my skin type. If you do have dry or dehydrated skin though, this would work great. I focused using this everyday on drier areas such as my knees and elbows and by the end of the week they were extremely soft. Due to the thick consistency it penetrated through the skin leaving them really smooth in the morning.

It can actually be used as a lip balm too, which I tried out and it wasn't as bad as I expected. It did feel quite weird but it was pretty moisturising but I think I will just stick to this for the body haha! Astral is available in a variety of sizes and I have the 50ml tub which I keep in my desk draw. It's the perfect small size to keep in your bag or at work so you can use it on the go. There's also a 200ml and 500ml so you can keep stocked up at home.

This has become one of my go to moisturisers the past month, the only downside for me is the smell which isn't necessarily off putting but it's quite strong so bare that in mind if you don't like strongly scented things (especially if you wanted to use it on your face!) However, Astral must be doing something right as the formula hasn't changed from when it was first created in the 1950's!

50ml - £1.29

200ml - £3.89

500ml - £7.99

Have you tried Astral before?

Jessica

xox

Post contains a PR sample, however all opinions are honest and my own! Read more in my disclaimer

The Perfect Lip | MAC Syrup Lipstick

MAC Syrup Lipstick £15

There's nothing like a MAC lipstick and I think I've found a contender for my perfect everyday colour. I received this for Christmas and have worn this loads since I got it. I think this is one of the best lipsticks to try if you are just starting out in makeup or Mac products and here's why...

This has a lustre formula, which I know some people don't like but personally, I really do! This is more on the cremesheen side of lustre rather than being shimmery which makes it very creamy but still with the shininess of a lustre. It has a light formula which is sheer yet build able. The colour is a gorgeous mauve toned pink which I think is suitable for all year round! This is a really natural colour on me, not unlike my natural lip colour which is fairly pigmented, so if yours are too, this may be perfect for you as an everyday lipstick. Or, if you have a more lighter lip colour, this adds the perfect amount of colour without looking like you're wearing something bright.

I definitely recommend the shade 'Syrup' if you are looking to treat yourself to a new MAC lipstick (or if you are on the look out for the perfect everyday lip shade!)

*** I have a giveaway currently running where you could win 12 products! Click HERE to enter! ***

Jessica

♥

Mad Hatters Afternoon Tea @ The Sanderson Hotel

The weekend after my birthday, my mum and I went for an extra birthday treat to The Sanderson Hotel to indulge in their 'Mad hatters tea party' themed afternoon tea! We've only been to one afternoon tea before, last year, which was just a standard hilton one so I was eager to try a themed one! I've wanted to go to this one for about a year so I was very excited to finally go.

(Warning! Quite picture heavy & apologises most are portrait, I didn't realise when I took them!)

I'm going to let the pictures do the talking here! It was a really nice environment and I liked how everything tied in together, looking slightly mismatched, but in a good way! The plates and tea cups had all different pictures on them (mine had a birdcage) and the jewellery box holding the sugar cubes was so cute and very unique! There was plenty of food, we took some home, with a good mixture of savoury and sweet. I did like the majority of the sweet things but the sandwiches weren't to my taste! There was also a 'Jelly Wonderland' which you went and got an assortment of different flavoured jelly's. Unfortunately I can't comment on the different teas available as neither my mum or I drink it, but there was quite a selection!

I would definitely recommend it if you're looking for a themed afternoon tea in London (it is very close to Oxford Street) and you enjoy lots of different foods. It was a good experience but if you're like me and are a bit of a picky eater it would probably be a bit of a waste, especially considering the amount of food you get! However, it was lovely to step into Wonderland for an afternoon :)

I would also really like to try the Pret-a-portea at the Berkeley hotel as it is all fashion inspired! Possibly a birthday treat for next year...

Have you ever had an afternoon tea?

*** I have a one year blogging giveaway on currently where you could win 12 products! Click HERE to enter! ***

Jessica

♥

Top Products | March & Update

Hello everyone!

It seems like ages ago since I lasted blogged and it actually was a really long time ago! The reason being is because for the past two weeks I was working every single day, from when I got home from school up until before bed on my performing arts exam. I was doing costume and let me tell you, it was an extremely stressful and time consuming job! Luckily the final examined show was on Thursday evening and now it's the Easter holidays! I do have a lot of revision to do over these next two weeks but I am planning to schedule posts so I won't be absent on here for too long again!

With that aside, this evening I'm bringing you my (belated!) top products for March! Here is what I've been using and loving for the past month...

♥ Victoria's Secret Sheer Love lotion - The scent of this is 'White cotton and pink lily' and although it wouldn't be a scent I would usually go for, I picked this up in a set during the sales this year and I really like it! It smells really fresh and has a nice light formula too.

♥ Garnier Ultimate blends 'the shine revitaliser' shampoo - I think this is a new shampoo range from Garnier and I got this as I was out of shampoo and this was half price. I'm happy I did though as it leaves my hair feeling really, really clean! It has a citrus scent which lingers, which is always a plus!

♥ Treacle Moon 'Ice cream soda' shower gel - I've had this for a while but this has been the only shower gel I've been using! It has a delicious creamy vanilla scent which is unlike any other vanilla scented products I've smelt/used before. You only need a small amount and it has a creamy lather which isn't drying.

♥ Dermalogica Clear Start Toner - My skin went a bit crazy last month so I made the effort to use this toner everyday. When I first bought this (along with the cleanser) I wasn't overly impressed, it didn't seem special! However with regular use I've noticed a big difference! My skin is still awful (that's acne for you!) but looks a lot clearer, brighter and a lot less red.

♥ Essie 'Cute as a button' - Summer in a bottle! I got this shade for my birthday and worn it a couple of times the past month, in fact I'm currently wearing it now! It's the perfect mix between a bright pink and a coral and I think this will look amazing with a tan. If you're looking for the perfect summer colour, definitely try this!

♥ Seche Vite Topcoat - Ahh, seche vite. This was in my 2013 favourites and I finished my bottle. Other topcoats I have been using have just not compared to this so I re purchased it last month. Makes my nails super shiny and drys extremely quickly, I'm really happy I've got this again!

What did you love throughout March?

*** I have a one year blogging giveaway on currently where you can win 12 products! Click HERE to enter ***

Jessica

xox