Current Beauty Favourites

I seem to have again been neglecting my blog, I feel like once I start posting regularly something comes along such as an assignment, or an exam or in this case an Easter holiday where I was working a lot whilst I was back home. I seem to have missed April favourites by a long shot, so I thought I'd share some of my favourites for the past couple of months.


For my base I've been loving two new additions to my collection, the Rimmel Lasting Finish Nude Foundation and Revlon Colorstay Concealer. I've loved the Revlon Colorstay foundation for around two years now so I don't know why it took me so long to pick up the concealer, but I'm so glad I did. It's medium coverage and blends to a really nice finish on the skin, it has a really creamy and moisturising formula that lasts all day - think Collection Lasting Perfection but not as drying. The foundation is also a medium coverage - my skin hasn't been the best it could be recently - that blends really easy in to the skin to give a flawless complexion and lasts all day. I've had some dryness recently and this hasn't worked too well on that, so this is defiantly one for normal to oily skin.

Another base product I've been loving is the Benefit Watt's Up highlighter. I've always preferred pinky highlighters so when I got this in the Benefit blush palette I originally had no care for it, but I have been loving the gorgeous natural glow it gives to the skin. It's a cream highlighter that's slightly golden and just blends out to a lovely sheen on the cheekbones. I'm a total cream highlighter convert now, and would go as far to say this is my favourite Benefit product ever! I've also been loving an oldie in the form of the Maybelline Lasting Drama Gel Eyeliner, an amazing eyeliner that once it's set does not budge. The formulation is super black and long lasting, and the actual pot itself lasts a really long time, I've had mine over a year and it's still creamy and going strong.

Finally are two Bourjois products, I spoke about these in my Everyday Makeup Routine back in February and I'm still loving them now. The Bourjois Colorband 2-in-1 Eyeshadow and Liner in Rose Fauviste is a really pretty shimmery pink for the lids, the perfect sweep of colour if you're in a rush, but also the perfect base. Finally the Bourjois Rouge Edition Velvet in Ole Flamingo, is still a lip product I'm having a bit of a love affair with. It's a bright pink matte lip that lasts well over 6 hours even through eating and drinking, and just looks simply stunning on the lips. The camera never seems to pick up the real colour, so you'll just have to trust me that this is a colour you need. Both of these Bourjois products are the two I would recommend the most, they're amazing!

What have been your current favourites?

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5 Helpful Tips For Using Pinterest To Boost Traffic

Source: Little Bits Of Lovely

I'm going to start this post by saying I'm really no expert when it comes to Pinterest, social media, SEO or anything of the kind, my boyfriend studies IT and the first thing he said when he looked at my blog was "you could really improve your SEO" - whatever that means, but I'm learning and trying to discover the best ways to market my blog and boost traffic. Recently in a bloggers chat the topic was the best way to gain traffic and bloggers use of social media, there were several bloggers discussing Pinterest and how they want to start using it or they don't understand, I tweeted a few people saying it's my main source of traffic and a few people replied asking for tips, so I thought I'd do my 5 easy tips for helping boost your traffic.


1. Try to join a bloggers board! MissMakeupMagpie created one, here, it has over half a million followers making it great exposure for you and your blog. It's currently closed to new members but if you are part of it start making use of it, if half a million people see it and only ten of them pin your post, all of their followers will see it, then if 3 of them pin it all of their followers will, and so forth. If you can't join at the moment still follow the board because she may open up to new members again, plus it's a great way to find new blogs, which leads me on to my next tip.

2. Follow and pin other peoples posts. If you're not going to follow and pin other peoples blog pictures, why should they follow and pin yours? Not only are you helping other bloggers out by getting their name out there, it's also getting your name out there to them. If you're their only new follower that day or you're one of only 3 people that pin their post, odds are they'll check your page out and will hopefully stick around.

3. Try to make your pictures look as nice as you can. I'm not saying I'm a photography maestro, but Pinterest is a vain little part of the Internet, the people like things to be pretty, bright and clear, or to at least look like they've been taken by a DSLR expert. If you look at pictures on the bloggers board the ones with the most interactions are the bright and sharp pictures. Of course certain pictures such as MAC products are always going to get a lot of pins, but if you can make a unfamiliar product look interesting people are more likely to become interested.

4. Post links to your blog and the posts. I'm honestly not patronising you here, because when I started using Pinterest I forgot to do this myself, it was only weeks later I decided to go back and change them, however by then they'd become lost in the abyss of Pinterest. Have your blog and Twitter linked up in your bio and I would recommend installing a Pinterest button to your blog, such as this one here, so you can automatically pin pictures from your blog and then don't have to worry about putting the link to the blog post manually. Pinning through a button will do it all for you, put the link, the title and your name, it's so simple!

5. Post at the right times! Just like your blog posts and tweets, you need to post pins at the optimal time to ensure you're reaching the largest amount of people possible. From experience I've found around 10am/11am and 7pm-9pm the best times to post, sometimes the 10am one can be a bit hit and miss, you'll either got loads of people or just a couple, but some of my most popular posts have been through pinning at 10am. The best way to find out is through your own trial and error, but as a starting point I would say 7pm.

Hopefully you found these helpful, these are just the basic ways I've helped boost my traffic. I've basically doubled the amount of traffic I receive since signing up to Pinterest and like I said, it's now become my main traffic source. These tips won't bring in millions of people, but I feel like following these few steps will help anyone to increase traffic, even if it's only a small proportion of their regular views.

Let me know if you found these useful, or your best tips!

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Grab Yourself A Free Burberry Lipstick!

As far as marketing campaigns go Burberry have got it spot on with the release of their latest lipsticks, Burberry Kisses, a hydrating lip colour which allows you to apply a sheer wash of colour and build upon this until you have full intensity. In order to celebrate the release of these new lipsticks they're giving away free samples, with the choice of a nude or a red lipstick. You receive a 1g sample of the lipstick, making it just under a third the size of a full size lipstick, giving it a value of around £7.50 - not bad considering it's free eh? I was expecting a sachet sized sample so was so surprised for this to turn up, because not only is it bigger than I expected but it's embossed like their full sized lipsticks and is in the exact same packaging, just a bit smaller.

If you're wanting to claim a free sample you have one of two options: comment your Twitter name below and I'll nominate you to receive a free one, or follow this link, here, and nominate yourself through a separate Twitter account. If you're feeling generous you can even nominate your friends after you've claimed your own sample.

I'm not sure how long this campaign is happening for, so be quick to it!

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