2014 The Year Of….

The Selfie…..just kidding. Though trust me, you wouldn’t want to see a close up of my face right now, I’ve been sick all over Christmas. It’s been a quiet one in this house, myself and the small boy have spent our days in front of the fire watching Harry Potter movies. His father has been dodging the germs by carrying on with the usual Christmas tradition of going out and getting hammered. Chance would be a fine thing. Anyway, I digress.

For me anyway, beautywise, 2014 has been mostly about SpaceNK & Charlotte Tilbury. Or the year I gave all my money to SpaceNK & Charlotte Tilbury. I started out small. Picking up the Rock Chick quad and Amethyst Aphrodisiac Colour Chameleon while in Manchester on a hen party, after using those obsessively for a while and loving them, I placed an order on Charlotte’s own website. This time I went for Dark Pearl Colour Chameleon (these pencils are amazing), Pillow Talk Lip Cheat, Matte Revolution lipsticks (so so good) in Amazing Grace & Lost Cherry, and Beach Stick in Las Salinas.

The Beach Stick for me is the, I won’t say dud, as it’s still a lovely product, but I was swayed by the newness of it, and the lovely packaging….but, I just don’t do cream blushes. I never really have. I buy them, I like them. I just don’t wear them. For all their “ease of use” reputation, for me, there ain’t nothing easier than swiping a brush through a pan of powder blush, applying it to the apples of my cheeks and pulling back and up for killer cheekbones. With creams I find I tend to move my foundation around if I use my fingers to blend….though I had much more success applying this by brushing my Real Techniques Expert Face Brush over the top a few times and stippling it in, still, when I powder over the top, (and lets face it, with my combo/oily skin, skipping powder is never an option) the lovely dewy glow gets lost. So I tend to favour my Hourglass blushes as they give a lovely glow and don’t look powdery at all.

Then there was the time himself got into big trouble for being out of the country on a lads holidays on the night of the big event I’d been looking forward to (and planning what clothes, makeup, hair & nails to wear) for months. As repentance, he treated me to Charlotte’s Magic Cream, and it is lovely. I started off using it as a night cream, but as the winter settled in, and my face got more and more parched by the constant heating and battling the cold and wind, I’ve now switched over to using it every day and it is lovely. As mentioned above, I have combo/oily, dehydrated skin and it has helped keep radiator face (that unfortunate affliction that happens during winter when every ounce of moisture gets sucked from your face and you end up with hideous flaky patches) at bay. It also helps my makeup apply really, really well. Finally, I treated myself to the mini Lipstick Charms, Fallen Angel quad (drool) and Full Fat Lashes mascara as part of my Christmas present to me….spoiler alert, I was very good to myself this Christmas.

I had bought the odd bit from them online before, but then SpaceNK opened on Grafton Street in June and all hell broke loose. Having not gone to Dublin shopping in ages (I KNOW!!) I had to make a trip to Dublin to shop there, I just had to. So in August, under the guise of some hurling match or other, I convinced himself to head to the big smoke for the weekend, and I spent a heavenly hour in SpaceNK with the gorgeous Karen from Lovely Girlie Bits oohing and aahing over everything. I ended up coming away with my HG primer, Hourglass Mineral Veil, an Ambient Lighting Powder in Dim Light….use it every day and adore it, it adds a lovely skin like glow to the face after I’ve loose powdered all my natural “glow” into submission. I also got another Hourglass blush, (I had purchased Dim Infusion online earlier in the year and wore it constantly) this time in Diffused Heat a stunning poppy (or so they say on their website) shade that adds a beautiful flush to the cheeks with a healthy, just in from the cold sort of look. Having seen Karen buying a Lipstick Queen lipstick in Upper East Side, a gorgeous corally shade, I had to have it too. And finally, on this trip anyway, I began my Sunday Riley obsession by picking up her famous Ceramic Slip cleanser. It leaves my face feeling lovely and smooth after cleansing and even though I’ve used it almost daily since August, I’ve barely a third of it used. How’s that for price per use eh?!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I saw that Hourglass were bringing out an Ambient Lighting Blush Palette, I stalked the SpaceNK website daily til it became available for preorder and swiftly added it to my basket, along with a NARS Audacious Lipstick in Anita. Thankfully the Hourglass palette didn’t have either of the blushes I already had so I was one happy camper when it arrived in early November and it hasn’t been off my cheeks since. I did most of my Christmas shopping online this year and it really was a case of one for you, one for me as I kept ordering stuff for myself as well. I got Sarah Chapman Skinesis Overnight Facial….it’s lovely, you wake up to gorgeous glowing (in the good way) skin, and GlamGlow Youth Mud. This I really like, though I found the first time I used it that I used too much, (a thin layer is more than enough) and I physically could not move my face with it on. You are recommended to wet your face after 10 minutes and massage it in to exfoliate. I did this the first time and while my face was very soft afterwards, my cheeks were very tender, so the 2nd time I used a much thinner layer and washed it off with a damp facecloth after the 10 minutes. My face was still very soft and smooth, but not tender at all. If you face isn’t too sensitive you would probably be grand to try the exfoliating scrub method, but it wasn’t for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Christmas and my birthday I asked himself to get me SpaceNK vouchers so that I could further my Sunday Riley obsession. He did and I used them to purchase the Good Genes treatment (enabled by Caroline Hirons herself and it is ah-maz-ing) and Start Over eye cream. I’d gotten samples of the eye cream when I was instore in August and really liked it, so when my Bobbi Brown Hydrating Eye Cream ran out recently I knew exactly what eye cream I wanted to replace it with. I also restocked my Hourglass Mineral Veil primer as I’d been scraping the dregs out of the bottle with the pump tube for weeks. I’ll do a more indepth review of the Sunday Riley products when I’ve had a bit more time to trial them, but so far I am very, very impressed.
   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So that’s it, where the majority of my spending has gone this year. I’ve gotten very into skincare, and high end skincare at that. I (thankfully) have quite good skin, but I ain’t getting any younger so I’ve decided to invest in taking really good care of my face, rather than trying to mask problems with makeup. Now that’s not to say that I’m giving up on makeup….you know me, that would never, ever happen. I have problems when it comes to the pretty shiny things =D