September Beauty Buys

Hi everyone, sorry I've been a little absent from blogging for the last two weeks, I started my final year of university and have just been settling into my new weekly routine of balancing university with my job. 

I have a lot to catch up on so there's a list of posts as long as my arm that I want to get written for you all :) I'm going to start by showing you all the beauty bits I picked up in September (minus a little E.L.F haul and a Student Night haul that I'll be posting separately). 

Firstly, I picked up a few things from Crown Brushes. Back when I was doing some modelling early last year, I spoke to a Makeup Artist who told me about a website called Crown Brushes where she purchased all her tools, she compared the quality to MAC brushes but at around 1/3 of the price (or less). So since then I knew I needed to add some to my collection, though the Real Techniques phenomenon did distract me for a while. I've been longing for the perfect small fluffy blush brush to apply powder blushes and found one on Crown Brushes that I thought looked just right, so I placed my first order with them, adding a small shadow brush and a fine liner brush to the basket. The brushes I bought are sleek with matte black handles and silver ferrules. The C403- Small Chisel Blush brush, though not the fluffy, soft blush brush I was hoping for, is excellent quality. It's a little flatter and more structured but I do think it will work well with powder blush or for contouring. This brush is fairly expensive at £17.89. The C209- Chisel Pointed Fluff is an excellent little shadow brush, it packs on colour well and as it's quite small, it can get into the harder-to-reach areas of the eye and at only £3.09 it's an absolute steal! The C250-1 Taklon Liner (£1.69) is your typical straight eyeliner brush. I didn't actually buy it for eyeliner as I prefer to use an angled brush for that, I bought it with the intention of using it to apply shadow under the eye or adding shadow on top of eyeliner to smoke it out. I'll report back when I've used these brushes more. For now though, Crown Brushes are offering you 10% off all orders throughout October - just click the following link and enter the code FINBER2013 at the checkout - http://www.crownbrush.co.uk/?acc=1afa34a7f984eeabdbb0a7d494132ee5 .

From The Body Shop, I picked up the new Camomile Waterproof Eye and Lip Makeup Remover and a mini Strawberry Body Butter, whilst they were having a  40% off event. As you'd exepct, the body butter smells incredible, so incredible in fact that I still can't bring myself to dip my finger in and use it because I like to smell it and I like how it looks when it's untouched. That's weird isn't it? I'm still testing out the makeup remover ready to review fully for you, but hint - at first I didn't like it, now I like it quite a bit! The week when I bought this, the Body Shop were also offering a free hand cream to all shoppers (no purchase necessary!) so after sniffing them all I decided on the Almond Hand & Nail Cream which normally retails at £5.00 so quite a saving! 

I was very excited when I saw on Twitter that M&S were offering 20% off their beauty section for one day only last month so I snapped up the Ren Glycolactic Radiance Renewal Mask for £24.00 instead of £30.00! It felt good to finally tick that one off the wishlist and welcome it into my skincare collection. Though it's not recommended for sensitive skin (like mine), I did a patch test first then used it fully last night and besides a little redness on my cheeks and around my nose, which are the most sensitive part of my face, I haven't noticed any nasty reactions. Full review on this beauty blogger favourite coming soon!

I've already mentioned the Nuxe Reve de Miel Lip Balm which is the most nourishing lip balm I've ever tried and I've been using it religiously every night to prevent my lips from getting chapped now that the cold weather is setting in. I also repurchased the Morocconoil Treatment 25ml, this time from Charissa's blog sale at less than half the price! I love this stuff and the 100ml bottle is definitely on my Christmas list. It leaves my hair soft and more manageable, and cuts drying time in half.

Of course I had to pick up some products from the highstreet, so this month I added the Maybelline 24 Hr Colour Tattoo in Metallic Pomegranate, a shimmery cream shadow in an Autumn-appropriate plum shade, Rimmel Kate Moss Matte Lipstick in 107 which is the first ever purple toned lipstick I've owned but is surprisingly wearable if you like the deep, vampy look which I've found out this month that I do, Bourjois 1 Seconde Nail Polish in Blue No Blues, definitely one of my favourite highstreet nail polish formulas as it's fast-drying, opaque in one coat and the wide brush coats the nails in one stroke, and the L'Oreal EverRiche Nourishing and Taming Shampoo and Conditioner, which smells dreamy and leaves my hair so soft and smooth.

So I've added a fair amount of products to my stash in September, but of course I'm never satisfied and have only replaced their spots on my wishlist with other products! Anyone else do this?

What did you pick up during September? 

Holly xo

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