Birthday Presents from Sephora

The best thing about my birthday this year was that both my sister and best friend were in the USA around the time, so I waved them off with all my love, well wishes and Sephora birthday present hints! ;) I wish Sephora would come back to the UK, or at least ship here. It's honestly my all time favourite shop, I could spend all day in there!

I thought I would share with you some of the goodies I got, a few things I had asked them to look out for but others were complete surprises!

My sister got me two things from the Sephora Cinderella collection, which was the best surprise as I thought everything would have been a pretty instant sell out! 

I got the perfume rollerball which is called 'So this is Love' which is a lovely girly smell and I love rollerball perfumes to keep in your bag. As well as not having Sephora, why do we not have rollerball perfumes either? Penalised for being English!

I also got the Midnight Hour Eyeshadow Palette

This is a beautiful palette, its one of those make up items I would buy for the packaging alone! I don't think I can bear to throw away the boxes and I love the attention to detail. On the mirror it says "It's the exit he'll remember" Oh Disney why have you ruined me with your impossible to obtain fairytale romance!

My favourite colour is the peachy/beige colour, including this kind of shade with the usual smokey grey colours appeals to me as it makes the whole palette so much more versatile.

I love this nail varnish by Illamasqua. The colour is called Charisma and its a gorgeous metallic red, but not the horrible kind where you can see every brush stroke on your nail!

Illamasqua Intense Lipgloss in Boost

I love Kat Von D, ever since those early days on Miami Ink, I even own every season of LA Ink. I just adore her style, especially her Gothic interior design!

Kat Von D make up is exclusive to Sephora and in my opinion its the best "Celebrity" make up range. Everything from the packaging, to the product names has Kat's style. I have tried a lot of her products and there really are some gems. So I always ask for something from her range if I know someone heading to America!

Kat Von D True Romance Eyeshadow Palette in Starstuck

Now this was one of the things on my list, I saw this on the Sephora website and I loved the colours. I don't do brightly coloured eyeshadow, but I will wear reds and oranges with neutral colours as they really compliment blue eyes and make them stand out. I also don't have any palettes with colours like these at all.

Everlasting Love Liquid Lipstick in Lolita

Another one on my list, I saw Kat post a picture of this on her instagram and had to have it. I don't know the exact colour she was wearing, but I had a guess and went with Lolita. 

This baby does not budge, in fact this swatch stained my arm for quite a few days! I ate, I drank, it stayed on but one of the downsides of this is how drying it is. This feels very dry on the lips I wont lie, but you can wear a lip balm over the top to help combat the dryness.

And lastly from Kat Von D my friend surprised me with her rollerball which has her two signature perfumes, Saint and Sinner

Next up (we are almost there I promise) was a nail varnish that my sister got me last year and I have almost used it up, so I was really hoping to get a replacement.

Its from Sephora by OPI and it has the best name ever

Be-Claus I Said So = My.favourite.ever.red.glitter

These last two things will probably seem very boring if you live in the US, but again more things that we cant get in the UK!

I love EOS lip balms, because there is nothing more disgusting then sticking your finger in your lip balm and getting it all under your nails *bleurgh*

And Maybelline Baby Lips, I have been wanting to try these for so long but you still cant buy them in the UK! Why don't we get the good products hey :'( 

Maybelline Baby Lips Peach Kiss

Finally, I thought I would include this even though its not from America or Sephora but my mum got this for me for my birthday and I have used it everyday since. Its the much hyped Bobbi Brown Bronzer brush. I love it, its the perfect size, density and softness. At the moment I'm using Nars Casino which is a little dark for me now and with the kabuki I was using I was looking a little bit like I had put my make up on in the dark. But with the Bobbi Brown brush, it blends out so smoothly that I no longer have orange stripes for cheeks! Hooray

Birthdays rule! Oh and I went to the V&A Hollywood Costume Exhibition for my Birthday, which I cannot recommend enough. If you are into films, please go and see it. I also had a lovely dinner in Beach Blanket Babylon in Nottinghill (cant go wrong with the burger!) and saw a showing of The Shining at BFI Southbank (Jack Nicholson crushing)

Hershesons Blow Dry Bar Review

It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago (26 ahh!) and as I have always wanted to go to the Hershesons Blow Dry Bar, I thought it would be the perfect excuse.

Hershesons Blow Dry Bar is in Topshop Oxford Street. You chose the style you want from the pictures on the wall and in 30 minutes they will create it for you.

I was umming and ahhing about what style to go for but ended up opting for Smooth and Wavy. I was torn between that and Carlam which is a gorgeous braided up do, which I think will have to have next time I go!

You can also chose whether to have your hair washed or not. We had already washed our hair prior and I think for some of the styles, particularly the up dos they would work better on second day hair rather then freshly washed hair.

Now I am really annoyed with myself as I didn't get particularly great pictures, I had planned to but it ended up being a major rush to get home from Hershesons, to then have the biggest panic rush getting changed and get to Notting Hill for 7pm. So apologies for that!

My friend Sophie had the Bardot, this looked stunning on her and is something that I would never be able to achieve at home. I don't think I would be able to pull this off but it looked amazing on her.

My turn, see what I mean about bad pictures! As I said before I went for the Smooth and Wavy and I loved it. As I have very straight hair my curls dropped more throughout the night but I actually really liked how it changed and got more messy. This picture really doesn't do it justice, but Joe who did my hair did an amazing job and I would love to be able to do this to my own hair everyday! 

Finally, my friend Chloe also opted for Smooth and Wavy. Chloe's hair holds a curl better then mine and still looked lovely the next day. I really love the smooth and wavy style, I'm definitely doing to have to try and recreate this at home.

For £25 I really don't think you can go wrong, I will definitely be going back!