A Bit Of A Drugstore Haul... #DitsyDecember

It's time again for yet another beauty haul as ever since I've been running this blog I feel whenever I go into a drugstore and come out with a few quite a few items it'd be rude not to give you lot the lowdown on them. As usual, a couple of weeks ago I headed into the Mothership (a.k.a. Boots), they bullied me into picking up some stuff, forced me to the till and physically took my debit card out of my purse and it fell into the card machine. What are they like, eh?

First things first - nails. As I explained in this post, up until recently I'd been having a bit of a 'mare with my nails - after having them Shellaced a few times (which I posted about here), I started to lose interest in painting them myself and left them bare for far longer than I should've. I then decided this wasn't the way to go and, inspired by a flurry of nail-related posts on my Bloglovin' stream about new launches, I've fell back in love with the stuff again. I've seen/heard a lot about a new polish from Barry M that - surprise, surprise - isn't actually one from their Gel line, but instead from their original 'Nail Paint' formula. The shade in question was 'Vintage Violet' - a muted purple with a slight grey undertone to it. I seem to gravitate towards these kinds of polishes around this time of year, and I know fo sho that this'll be one I'll use constantly over AW14. I also picked up a polish at completely the other end of the spectrum - a bright pink glitter from their new 'Glitterati' line. They've released a range of glitter polishes in various shades and, me being me, I had to pick up the cerise pink one. This is an absolute beauty of a shade, I can imagine this being stunning either one its own with a quite a few layers or over the top of another shade in a single-coat jobby.

 

I then went to the Maybelline stand in what was probably the third or fourth time in a matter of weeks. As every beauty blogger most likely knows, they've recently released their Colour Drama Velvet Lip Pencils and the whole beauty community has gone mad for them. Many have cited them as a good, if not better dupe for the NARS Velvet Lip Pencils, which retail at around £18. These come in at £4.99, which for an almost-identical product, is amazing! I'd been trying to get my hands on the 'Keep It Classy' shade ever since Anna featured in in one of her videos, but every time I went, they had none apart from a tester - and whilst I was desperate, I wasn't that desperate. I'd also seen other shades I was intrigued by and luckily this time I had success! They had pretty much every shade and I inevitably picked up 'Keep It Classy' - an apparent pink on the tube that comes out much more mauvey/plumy on the lips - but another two also caught my eye. I went for 'Light It Up' - a bright, true red, and 'Red Essential' - a deeper, slightly burgundy-toned red. I'm not really much of a bold lip girl, out of all makeup steps it tends to frighten me slightly so I tend to shy away and stick to nudes. However, I made a slightly late Beauty Resolution (as posted here) to wear more bright lipstick and, with the recommendation from Anna and many others that to go bold you should go matte, I figured these were a good option to go for as they're not super glossy. I have had success with bold lips since that post was published, though I wanted to expand my colour range somewhat. I've used all three I bought since then and I have to say, I'm very impressed so far. I might pop up a review sometime soon...

 

Finally, a slightly more mundane purchase, but still a necessary one. I can't remember how many times I've repurchased the Collection Lasting Perfection Concealer, but I do know I've definitely gone through quite a few now. I've probably raved about this somewhere else on here along the line, so I'll keep it brief. I love this stuff. I used to use it to cover everything (which it did a very good job of) until the Rimmel Wake Me Up came into my life and it's been relegated to just blemishes but it still is my #1 concealer for that department.