E.L.F Haul!

Hello!

If you didn't hear, E.L.F Cosmetics are basically shutting down in the UK, so on their website there was a up to 70% off all their products! When I heard about this, I couldn't help but check out their make up and buy a few bits, as it turned out to be pretty cheap!! I've never tried E.L.F products before this so I was excited. My package finally arrived and tbh it was pretty quick to say how many orders they must of got. I'm going to talk about what I got down below! :)

6 Luscious Liquid Lipsticks
2 Hypershine Lip Glosses
2 Single Eyeshadows
1 Lipstick

I'll start with the Lucious liquid lipsticks! I had heard a lot of good things about these products from people in the bbloggers community. Firstly I'm not the biggest fan on the packaging of these, if I'm honest I'm not keen on any of ELF's packaging on their products. I like the actual product though, the colours are all beautiful. I thought that I'd try a range of shades, they're highly pigmented and glossy. My favourite shades are 'Perfect Pink' and 'Ruby Slipper'. They look lovely on the lips and aren't too sticky like some liquid lipsticks can be, for the money of them, I'm really happy with them. I have inserted photos below of swatches of the colours!

I also got 2 of the Hypershine Lipglosses in the shades 'Flirt' and 'Bubblegum' they're pretty similiar, they're both sort of coral colours which I'm really digging atm. If I'm honest there isnt much different in these and the liquid lipsticks, they give the same sheer finish. I like how they look on the lips, and they aren't very sticky which is great because is there anything worse than a sticky lipgloss?! I would say these a less pigmented than the liquid lipsticks.

I also bought 2 single eyeshadows, when I checked out the eyeshadows there wasn't many left but I thought I'd be daring and choose some colours that I wouldn't normally wear! I got a brown ish shade but it has a tinge of burgundy in it? It's kind of hard to explain if you can't see it in person sorry. These sorts of colours always make me eyes look weird. I also got a purple which didn't look bright on the website but when it came it was much brighter than I thought it was, again, this is out of my comfort zone but I'm excited to use them. They're much more pigmented in the pan, it took me a few swatches on my arm to build up the colour.

The last thing I got was just one lipstick, again there was barely any shades left but I wanted to try one anyway. I got a sort of muted red colour, on the swatch it doesn't look as nice as it does on my lips, it feels nice and soft on my lips, not drying. The thing I really dislike about this prodcut is the packing, it's just so awful, not just the look of it, but it's so stiff to twist up the lipstick. This is the only thing putting me off them, but the actual lipstick its self I really like.

That's all I got in my E.L.F haul, thank you for reading. Do you own any E.L.F products?

Sophie xxx

Lush Cosmetics Cupcake Face Mask Review

Hello everyone, today I've got a review of the Lush fresh face mask, Cupcake. Lush is one of my favourite companies because 1. They use fresh natural ingredients and 2. They don't test on animals! Whenever I go into Lush, the smell of the bath bombs just leads me over to that area of the shop so sometimes I never really have a proper look around at all the other great stuff they sell. I have heard great reviews about all their fresh face masks, especially for teenage skin, Cupcake. So kindly my mum decided to buy this for me which I was really grateful for as I had been wanting to try this mask ever since I read reviews on it, and smelt it! It smells really great!

When the mask is on my skin, it feels tingly because of the peppermint, but it feels tingly in a nice way?? Lol! It's like you can feel the mask working on your skin! It smells like chocolate but has a strong scent of peppermint! It has rhassoul mud which cleanses and softens the skin which I definitely agree with, my skin feels so clean and soft after using this mask, my skin has never felt so soft! It also really helps to calm down any redness on the face, my face gets quite red as i'm a red head.

It also includes linseed infusion, cocoa powder and fair trade vanilla absolute.

Personally, I like how thick the mask is because you don't have to use loads to cover your whole face, this is the small tub and I've had 4 uses out of it and can probably get another 2! (These pictures where taken after 3 uses!) This pot is the smallest they do for masks. 

The only downside to this mask is that because it's thick and brown, it's messy to get off! Most masks are messy to get off so this doesn't really matter to me much! Overall, I think when my little tub runs out i will purchase another one! Or maybe I try a different one :) I have posted a few photos below, sorry the quality isn't very good! 

Also, because of the fresh ingredients in this mask, it needs to be put in the fridge! Also, it expires after 3 weeks, so make sure you use all your mask in that time period! 

Thank you for reading!

Sophie xxx

Living With Anxiety & Tips On How To Cope

Hey everyone, today I'm writing a different sort of post from my other posts, it's going to be about anxiety. Many young people suffer from some sort of mental illness such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders and many more awful sad illnesses. I'm going to write a little about my experience.

 Unfortunately, I'm one of those, I suffer with really bad anxiety, mostly social anxiety, my life changed since I finally got diagnosed with it when I was 14. I have always been a shy person so when I first had feelings of being anxious I just put it down to being a shy person and getting nervous easily. In about year nine at high school, I just stopped going to school, I physically couldn't get myself into the building, I would sit outside the school in the car with my mum and I would just start to shake, feel very sick, sweat and panic, I had no idea this was anxiety at this point, neither did my mum. Because of this, some days she would just shout at me to get out of the car, threaten to get the headteacher to come out, but some days she would be nice and supportive. Some days I would make it into school but I didn't go to lessons, I went to a little room called The Base, which was basically a safe place in the school for other people like me & people with disabilities. Because of my anxiety, I barely ate anything, I thought that if I ate something then had to go out, I'd be sick, I was scared of being sick, especially in public.
I finally got to see a councilor about my anxiety and that's when I got properly diagnosed. I had some sessions but the woman I had really wasn't nice to me but did help. After that I had about 10 months of a good patch at school, I could get into school, I went to most of my lessons, and I thought I was doing pretty well. When May 2014 came, I was taking my Year 11 GCSEs, this is when it all started again up until now, and it's worse than ever. :( I have had to drop out of college because of anxiety and I don't really know when I'll be any better to go back yet. But in the mean time, I'm building up confidence, trying to get out more, doing things on my own. I'm currently on another waiting list for some more sessions of CBT(Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. I'm going to list a few tips down below about helps me and what could also help others suffering with this awful illness.

TIPS

• Wherever I go, I always take a bottle of water with me, whether it's a day out, or just walking my dog, I never know when anxiety can flare up. Water helps to clear the throat when the throat can go dry and dumb.
• Take small steps at a time, don't try jumping straight into something you're not ready to do.
• Focus on whats happening at the exact moment, don't think of what could happen in the future, focus on yourself right now.
• Take deep breaths, breathe in, hold, breathe out.
• Think positive thoughts, what's the worst thing what could happen?
• Talk about it, don't keep it bottled up inside, talk to somebody about how you're feeling.
• Treat yourself, when you've done well.
• Expose yourself to what you're scared of, hiding from the fear can only make it scarier, not easier.
• Do something to take your mind of it, which helps me is just messing around on my phone, such as playing a game.
• Listen to your favourite music.
• BE POSITIVE, DON'T GIVE UP ON YOURSELF!!

If you're not sure if you're experiencing signs of anxiety, here is a list of symptoms what can anxiety can cause:

• Nausea
• Sweating
• Shaking
• Feeling dizzy/faint
• Hot flushes or chills
• Shortness of breath
• Pounding heart
• Bad thoughts

Remember, you're not alone, you're not the only one who feels the way you do, you may feel like nobody understands or you can never better, because you CAN! If you ever need anybody to talk to, you can always drop me a message, I have links to my social medias on my blog. 

Stay positive everyone, this is a very personal topic for me to talk about.

Sophie xxx