This Old Dark Machine

Well, well, this skirt arrived in the post yesterday that I ordered from ebay. I wasn't even looking for a maxi skirt, it was just such a bargain that I couldn't turn it down. Ohh, I have problems. It was only £3.70, which is just insane at these day's prices! The seller sells them in all sorts of colours, but I chose to stick with black, seeing it as the safest option!

It's a lot more figure hugging than I expected, as it's made out of stretch jersey material (a lot like the mini's they sell in H&M). My booty was quite prominent, felt like Kim K (but that's no problem, because she's amazing!) I wore it with my new grey dipped-hem top from New Look tucked in. I really like this top, it's very light knit, with capped sleeves and the back dips down lower than the front. I also just chucked on this little woven belt I picked up from Primark ages ago, was only £1.50 if I remember correctly.

Finally, my lovely new flatforms, also from New Look. They're £37.99, which I thought was pretty pricey for New Look shoes? (Another issue with their pricing!) They've got a suede finish with leather lining and came with an ankle strap (which I removed). I can't find them on their site, but they were part of the Limited Edition range. 

Hit my lower lash line with some dark blue shadow from the MUA Dusk til Dawn palette, with winged kohl eyeliner on top. Quite liked it, never thought to keep the colour under the eye before. I think it adds a nice pop, while keeping it simple!

Ring Master

So, even though I'm severely poor at the moment, a couple of treats have been purchased over the past week or so. You know, to ease the pain of being so poor (??) Whoops.

First off, my mumma sent me down a little present when my brother came to visit for doing well at uni so far this year (show off), including £10 to treat myself. Well to Primark I went, where else? I'd been day dreaming about Chelsea boots for far too long now, so I grabbed these gorgeous booties for a sly £15. They're so, so comfortable and really versatile, so I'm really glad I picked them up. Thank you mumma.

Then, I went back to Primark on Sunday with the lovely boyfriend and convinced him to pick himself out a couple bits as he never treats himself these days. And of course, you guessed it, I treated myself too. I love, love this blouse so much though. It's amazing quality for Primark too, and I just adore the stripes on the back and how it's so long and flowy. For £10, I just can't fault it, so definitely worth loosening the purse strings for. 

I wore this blouse with my Dorothy Perkins skinny jeans and H&M blazer today. When I first put it together, I felt like a circus ring master haha hence the post title! Something about the stripes and the blazer together made me feel like I should be cracking a whip and shouting 'Roll Up, Roll Up!'...

Anyway, PANCAKE DAY TODAY! We're having pancakes for dinner and damn, am I excited. My filling of choice used to be golden syrup and ice cream, but I discovered the glorious combination of peanut butter and nutella recently...ohh nom nom nom!

MUA Haul: Eye Primer, Face Primer and Lipstick

Back in December I made a little MUA purchase whilst Superdrug were still doing their free delivery. I've only just got my goodies as it was delivered to my family's house, and I haven't been there to pick it up! So my brother (and his lovely girlfriend) came to visit last weekend, and I finally got all my packages! Weeee!

So, first off I picked up the Professional Eye Primer for a tiny £2.50. This is one of the main things I love about MUA, they're not ridiculous with their pricing, it's realistic and affordable - exactly what I like. So, I love my eye shadows, the more the merrier in my opinion and I've tried a couple of eye primers including Revlon (thumbs up) and Urban Decay (thumbs down). After seeing it mentioned quite often on the MUA blog, I thought I'd give it a spin. It comes in a tube with an applicator that's a bit like those that come with a concealer. The formula is a pale whitish pink shade that when you apply and smooth over your lid turns clear. The first time I used this I dabbed about 3 times on each eye lid and spread with my index finger all over the lid where I was planning on applying my eye shadow. I used a bright blue shimmer from MUA's Immaculate pallette all over my lid (as I was dressing up as a Grandma, not my usual choice of eye shadow I promise!) Now this primer clung on to the pigments of the eye shadow like nobody's business! I was seriously amazed at how bright the colour came out, definitely brighter than when I've used it before incorporating it into a smokey eye. The colour lasted the whole night and I was genuinely impressed.

I've been wanting to try a face Primer for the longest time, but can never find one that I want to invest in. Enter MUA with their £4 fix (here)! I don't usually have a problem with my foundation wearing away too much during the day, probably because I wear so much powder, but all primer users tend to rave about how much better their foundation looks after they've used a primer underneath, so I wanted to try it out too! The product comes out white straight out of the tube, it's a jelly type consistency and looks quite stodgy (I think that's the word I'm looking for...) When you spread it, it goes clear just like the eye primer does. It does have that soft, velvety feel to it at first, giving you that silicone feel you'd expect from a primer. After applying my foundation, I couldn't see a noticeable improvement, nonetheless I do think it helped my foundation last well through the night. It did make applying powder a little more difficult with a power puff, as I felt there was a stickiness to my skin as I tried to sweep the powder across my face - which I didn't like. 

Lastly, another lovely red lippie, in Shade 13 for a knock out £1! I think this is my favourite of all the bits I picked up. I've had a couple other MUA lipsticks, and found them a little too sheer and greasy looking. However, I do really love this one. Trying it on yesterday for the photos above, I was a little dubious as to what to expect. I applied as usual and wasn't too crazy about how shiney it looked, but it had a good colour pay off which I was pleased with. I applied it liberally, then smacked my lips together a few times which mattified it a little, and well I was pretty chuffed! A very pretty, bright red, which some slight pinkish orange undertones. 

MUA really are a great brand to play about with without breaking the bank. I'm looking forward to trying some of their Love Heart nail varnishes, all pastels and pretty; ready for Spring!

Valentines Date

As I mentioned in my previous post, today my boyfriend and I celebrated a belated Valentines day, or 'Valentines Day part two' as we've been calling it (hence the soppy photos!) I don't usually like to share my personal life so much on my blog, but seeing as I go by the blog name of 'Marie Loves', spose it seems appropriate to give the lover boy a mention! (Ohh can't you feel the love?)

Anyway, here's what I chose to wear. Managed to fish out this lovely blouse I brought for New Look last year the other night when I dressed up as an OAP for a fundraiser two of my lovely friend's were hosting. It rekindled my love for this blouse, so thought I'd pull it back out the wardrobe today! I do love New Look blouses, but I have realised recently New Look are getting more pricey, which is really disappointing. Anyone else noticed this?

With this I wore my lovely H&M pleated skirt I got for Christmas. This is only the second time I've worn it, but I love it. It's pretty short, so can't really wear it as high waisted as I'd prefer, but it's amazing quality and a real wardrobe staple.

Had the loveliest day with my love. He brought me the full size Wake Me Up foundation (read my review here) which I've been lusting over for a while now, and the most gorgeous flowers. What a charmer! Also saw The Muppets Movie today, still got the songs in my head. 'It's time to play the music, it's time to light the lights, it's time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight...' :)

Nail Art Love

This morning I woke up and decided I wanted to do my nails, so I did. My boyfriend and I are celebrating a belated Valentines day tomorrow, so in light of that I thought I'd go for a little bit of a love heart theme. I also wanted to have a little play with my new Sally Hanson nail art pen so I just had a mess about and here's what I came out with!

I kept the Technic glitter on my pinky fingers, with 17's Parma Violet on from the last time I did my nails, which you can see here. I then painted both my thumb nails with the Parma Violet again, as it's just such a cute pastel shade. I then did both my index and ring fingers on both hands with Avon's Nailwear Pro in the shade Fuchsia Fun, which I received a little while ago from the beautiful Leigh at Love Leigh Leigh! I then followed this by painting both middle fingers with Rimmel's Lasting Finish Fruities in the shade Lemon Drop. This polish took a few coats to achieve an opaque look, I think this may be down to it's light colour and thickened consistency. 

I then went in with my Sally Hanson nail art pen in white on both my thumb nails. I went for a striped look on my left hand and polka dots on my right. I then followed this with the pen in navy blue on my index and ring fingers. On the left hand I carefully drew two diagonal lines on the index finger and some little polka dots on the ring finger. On the right I went with a thick filled in corner on the index finger and some mini hearts on the ring finger. The hearts are very easy to achieve, simply drawing a thick V shape will create the look of a heart, so it really doesn't take much attention to detail. It's especially easy with the Sally Hanson pens, you don't need to put any effort into application, the polish comes out the pen with just a touch on the nail so you don't need to be overly controlled when using it.

Finally, I used a nail art brush from a cheap kit I picked up on ebay to paint on the heart on my middle finger. I dipped it into the Avon Fuchsia Fun and dabbed onto the nail, using the same V shape technique I explained before. I found that some polish blobbed onto the nail, so I wiped off the excess polish on the brush and used it to evenly spread the blob of polish around the heart shape to fill it in and round the edges of the heart to make it a little softer. I did this on both hands.

Then I very patiently waited for my nails to dry and sealed it with a clear nail polish! I'm really happy with how they turned out! Let me know if you've tried anything similar recently, would love to see your home made nail art!

Rimmel Wake Me Up foundation

At the weekend I picked up this month's Elle Magazine, mainly for the free Soap and Glory mascara (which I think I'm allergic to, WAH! Anyone else had this problem?). In the back pages I found a sample of Rimmel's new foundation, Wake Me Up. I don't usually use foundation sachet samples for a couple of reasons: they're not usually in my shade and they normally aren't too generous with how much product they give you. However, I decided to give this one a go, and opened my mind to foundation samples!

And I'm so glad that I did. This foundation is brilliant. I'm usually very hard to please with foundations, my skin isn't very open minded when I'm trying out something new, and will dry up in the most irritating of places, i.e. around my eyes :( But Wake Me Up is so creamy, it's like it acts as a moisturiser. It's so smooth and rich, and I could instantly tell with one swipe that I was going to love this foundation.

The coverage is amazing. I usually put my foundation on, then to build up the coverage and keep it in place and use  two different pressed powders. But after applying this foundation to my face, I didn't even feel like I needed to put any powder on at all!

It really does give you that fresh faced glow they advertise, really evening out my complexion well. It has a beautiful dewy finish to it and my skin just looked flawless for hours on end. It's really easy to apply, spreads and smooths nicely across my skin, and covered a couple of blemishes on my chin amazingly. So well in fact, that I didn't even worry about apply concealer. 

The sample came in the shade Soft Beige, which matched up to my skin well considering it wouldn't be a shade I would usually go for. I'm looking forward to picking up a full size bottle, especially since they're £3 off at the moment!

Revlon Matte Lipsticks

                                                                            Revlon Matte 004 Pink About It

 

Revlon Matte 001 Nude Attitude

I've had Nude Attitude for quite a while now, but my lips were in such a poor state when I first brought it that I never wore it. But now things are looking up, and I'm far more into lipstick than I was then, so I thought I'd share with you my experience of Revlon's Matte lipsticks.

I love perusing ebay for bargains recently, and not so long ago I came across Pink About It. I loved the shade and searched for so swatches only to find the colour had been discontinued in the UK. Why does this keep happening to all the best colours? Either way, this meant it was a steal on ebay! The colour is a lovely corally pink. It's really vibrant and soft and I absolutely adore it. It's a great in the middle colour, by this I mean I feels it's suited to both summer and winter as it's such a versatile shade. I definitely prefer this shade of pink to the frosty bright pink in your face colour I was expecting.

I picked Nude Attitude up from Boots when I was in the mood to treat myself last year. I feel this shade is a little more shiney than I would expect from a matte lipstick, but this doesn't bother me as I don't think my lips could handle anything drier. I love it's neutral shade, giving you that done up yet natural look. I really like this lipstick, I have no idea why I left it hidden away in my make up bag for so long!

I think the Revlon Matte lipsticks are fantastic. I really would say they are a dupe for Mac lipsticks, and better value for money too. I love it's packaging, it's sleekness makes it look very attractive which I think is important in good make up! 

I'd definitely recommend these lipsticks for those looking for a great matte lipstick that isn't going to completely dry your lips out and flake out!!