MY FAVOURITE MAKE UP FROM 2019 - CHRISTMAS PARTY GRWM

Christmas gives us all the perfect excuse to go out celebrating at every given opportunity and I am taking great advantage of that. Along with partying comes the getting ready, some find it tedious but I love sitting down and spending too much time leisurely doing my make up. I used all of my holy grail products that I've been loving this year so if you're struggling for Christmas present ideas then maybe these could be something you ask for, or a christmas treat for yourself. I always find that around Christmas I can never think of anything I want, does anyone else find that? Like someone asks me what I would like for Christmas and I never know. Anyway, I filmed this look over on my IGTV if you'd like to see me actually do this make up.

Recently I've been really into eyeshadow, I was too scared to do cool things with my eyes before but I decided to teach myself and now I'm obsessed. The Alexis Stone X Revolution palette absolutely blew my mind when I bought it. I fell in love with the idea of the collaboration and knew that I needed all these beautiful colours but I wasn't expecting such a good quality eyeshadow! With the Revolution brand, with it being so cheap, I thought it would be a powdery, sheer formula but it's so pigmented and such good quality, I can't believe it was only £20! The purple eyeshadow I chose might have stained my eyelids pink but the colour is so vibrant and looks so amazing I can justify looking a little weird the day after. The colour set in the palette, with the multiple shades of the same colour, leave it so easy to create monochromatic looks with a perfect blend which is something I really struggle with so it's just a great concept and it's been pulled off incredibly well.

To add a dramatic cat eye sort of thing to the simple eyeshadow I tried out the LA Girl gel liner. I had never used a gel liner like this one but it was so creamy and, used with a tiny morphe liner brush, created a perfect flick so easily. I normally ruin my eyeliner by going back over it to try and even thing out but this time round it worked perfectly first time, it may have been a fluke incident but I hope this means I can put an end to my chunky, uneven eyeliner.  Once I had created these beautiful sultry cat eye flicks, I wanted to add to some more to the drama and used the LA Girl glide gel liner to my tight line and waterline which made me feel very sultry. Then I obviously used Maybelline Great Lash to finish off the eye look. I will never use a different mascara. You can quote me on that.

I bought the W7 Princess Primer Potion a while ago after hearing that it was a dupe for the Farsali Unicorn essence but, as I am sane and wouldn't spend £50 on such a gimmicky product, I can't make any comparisons between the two. The W7 primer makes my skin look really glowy and it does feel hydrating while smoothing out my skin so for £8 it's definitely worth it, plus it looks super 'Instagram Guru' when you let the pink sparkles drip down your cheeks.

As always I used the CYO Life proof foundation, it's just a solid, 'know what you're getting' choice for me. It's got great coverage and has a beautiful skin like finish while covering everything I need it too. I'm always cautious about trying out new foundations, mainly because I don't want my skin to hate a new product and retaliate back. When I find something I like I tend to stick to it, foundations are tricky. Another of my 2019 holy grail products is the ELF camo concealer, this concealer is £5, comes in a huge bottle and I'm pretty sure it's a 'dupe' for taste shape tape (another product I have never owned). Another product I haven't been able to top this year is the CYO all set fixing powder. I like this powder because it doesn't dry out my skin or make it look powdery, it just sets everything in place and looks like skin - well as much as this amount of make up can look like skin.

The NYX highlight and contour pro palette is my go to palette for bronzer, I wouldn't say contour because I'm not sure that's what I do, but I do use the two lighter bronzer shades to bring some life back to my face and I think it looks really nice. The highlighter in this palette is also amazing, it's the only highlighter that doesn't go patchy on my skin. Overall it's a great palette with a bunch of bronzers, powders and a highlight for a pretty decent price, I found mine in TKMaxx for £10 but I definitely think it's worth it's normal price of £19. One of my favourite blush palette is by Make Up Obsession. Make Up Obsession is a brand I haven't really explored yet, which doesn't make any sense because I am completely in love with their 'Isn't it peachy' blush palette. It is a product I am well and truly obsessed (not a pun) with. The shades are all beautiful and I use these blushes religiously, can't recommend the 'Isn't it peachy' palette.

Superdrug has a lot of 3 for 2 offers which I use an excuse to buy make up I don't need. Anyway, I got the MUA brow define micro eyebrow pencil thanks to one of these offers but I'm not sure I like it too much. Maybe it's because I got a shade a little too light for my hair, but the pencil is nice creates a 'softer'  look than I normally go for which I might like? I'm still undecided. I added some of the ELF lock on liner brow cream to create a darker, stronger brow that was actually the right shade. I love this brow liner because it's so creamy and easy to create a good brow with, plus it's affordable and you get loads of product. I always use the 'soap brows' technique to set my brows in place, so cheap and it holds the hairs in place forever. My brows always make me nervous because I feel like they're such an important part of your face and girls are always judging each others eyebrows - don't even lie and say you don't do that, we all do that.

For lipstick I put on an oldie but a goodie, the Maybelline Superstay 14hr lipstick in shade ???. I don't really wear lipstick much because I have dry, dry lips, but I like this one when I pop a little on my lips and then soften it out with my finger. Finally, to finish everything off I set my face with the I heart Revolution green tea fixing spray, I don't really know if setting spray actually works but it smells nice and makes me feel all fancy and that.

I wanted to look a little fancier than normal for my Christmas party thing so I wore this Nasty Gal dress that I bought on Depop, it still had the tags in it and it's super cute so I am very happy with that £6 purchase. It's a tad long for me so I kind of folded it up around my waist and then covered that DIY job up with a Primark belt, life hack right there. Obviously I wore tights because it's December, and I also put on fluffy socks before I put on these really awesome chunky platform boots I bought in the ASOS black Friday sale. I thought I was going to be cold but it turned out I didn't need a thick jacket as maybe I possibly had a little bit of a beer coat on that kept me nice and cosy. I have many handbags but I LOVE this adorable fluffy handbag from Primark, it's literally the cutest thing ever and I wear use it all the time.

I was really feeling myself in this make up and outfit, and ultimately that's all that's important. If you feel the need to buy any of the products I've mentioned I can't recommend the Alexis Stone palette and the Make Up Obsession blush palette enough, they're both products I don't think I could live without!

DYING MY HAIR A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT SHADE OF BROWN AND CUTTING MY FRINGE WITH KITCHEN SCISSORS

I've have been messing around with my hair for 9 years, I don't remember what my natural hair colour even is at this point. I murdered my poor hair by home bleaching and dying it so often so in an attempt to revive the mop, for the past year or so, I've be a brunette and have been loving it. I love dark hair on me, it makes me feel really confident and I think it suits me well. I documented this whole hair ordeal on my IGTV if you'd like to see me make slight changes to my appearance. 

My hair needs a lot of love and care to keep it nice and soft but since my roots are a lighter brown to the rest of my hair, I do have to dye them to keep up this deep brunette facade. Last time I dyed my hair I used the 'Schwarzkopf Colour Expert' and found that the 'omegaplex' (whatever that may be) made my hair feel so healthy and luscious, so I decided that I would dye my whole head to get that much needed anti breakage, anti damage goodness over all my hair. I also did this as I was scared the dye might be the wrong shade and would leave my roots a complete new colour and I was right, it was darker so thank god I did this. Another reason this dye is great is that you put it on dry, unwashed hair so you don't have to go through washing, and drying your hair to then dye it, wash it and dry it again. 

Whilst the dye was .... dying? Developing? Whatever it was doing, it took twenty minutes so I popped on a face mask and some of them under eye serum pad things. The 'by nature Brightening Clay mask' is one of my favourite masks at the moment, it makes my skin look so fresh and clean (clean). Whenever I have dye on my hair I get so nervous I'm going to lean up against or fall into the white walls of my rented flat and create a mess I'll never be able to clean up, it may sound far fetched but if you know me you will understand that I don't need something to trip over, I just topple randomly. 

After the twenty minutes was up I jumped in the shower and, after the dye was rinsed out, I used my Herbal Essences shampoo and conditioner to wash my hair. The only reason I use these products over another is because they're on offer like all the time. I like the smell of them both but if they're not on offer when I'm shopping and something else is, I will always go for the cheaper option. 

This mask is my favourite hair product in the world! It smells like those foamy banana sweets that everyone had as a kid, the perfect smell for hair. I use this stuff as a mask in the shower but you can also use it instead of conditioner AND you can use it as a leave in conditioning mask once you get out the shower! I love it. It's also cruelty free, vegan and full of natural ingredients. It makes my hair smell amazing, feel so silky and soft and I just love it - couldn't live without this stuff. 

Before my hair can dry too much I brushed it all through and combed through my fringe to get it all where it should be before I butcher it with my kitchen scissors. My fringe grows so quickly and I don't have the time or money to be trekking to a hairdressers every other week to get my fringe trimmed - so I do it myself, and regret it nearly every time but I'll never learn. I like my fringe to be quite short, not sure why, I think it looks cool. It's super hard to make it even so I always start by cutting it longer than I want then evening everything out before going in to cut more off. This takes me so long, probably too long but I'm scared to mess up. I also cut little upwards strokes, which I think it called feathering? It simply thins out the bottom of my fringe a little so it looks a little nicer and less like I cut it with kitchen scissors. I then blow dry my fringe and clean up any bits of fringe that I hadn't noticed when it was damp.

I then blow dry all my hair, I know you're meant to use as little heat as possible on your hair, but I read somewhere that the weight of wet hair pulling at the hairs root is really unhealthy for the hair and leads to more hair loss, which I don't want so I always dry my hair. I don't straighten or curl my hair too often but I do find that I have to straighten my fringe regularly to stop it flicking sideways, I just curl it under so it's all sitting straight and even. I don't use fancy hair straighteners, these are so old and I think they're from the Morrisons clearance section - we don't need to be fancy to look fancy. 

I'm not sure what the point of this blog post it, if anything it's probably that you don't have to splurge on fancy products to look kinda cute. Also you should take care of your hair, if you bleach it constantly for years on end it's going to come back to haunt you. And finally, maybe you should get hair scissors if you're going to cut your own hair, I'm going to ask for some for Christmas - great present idea. 

DAY OUT AT THE GERMAN MARKET

I love living in Birmingham, there's always something happening and at this time of year when the German Market is all set up the town centre looks beautiful. Where I'm from, the town centre isn't any different in December to the rest of the year and after moving to Brum last year I was upset that I never got the chance to properly go to the German Market so I wanted to make sure I got the full festive experience this time round.

To get myself fully in the Christmas mood, I started my day off with some classic festive music and turned on all of my Christmas lights despite the feeling in the pit of my stomach reminding me of the electric bill. As I had spent the entire previous evening watching Belle Jordan's Christmas make up tutorials, I wanted to look glam and feel super confident, plus I had been picking at my face and decide I needed to cover that up. Originally I put on a Christmassy red lip forgetting the fact I was going to be shovelling food and drink in my mouth all day, so that came back off pretty quickly. If you'd like to see my make up, outfit and a little bit of my day, I have an IGTV up on my Instagram!

The main reason to visit the Christmas market is for the food and the drinks - I'll be straight up. As lovely as the items some of the stalls there are selling, the main bulk of market is made up of bars and food stalls. All of the food smells absolutely delicious, I could've eaten literally everything if I was able to take out a small loan to pay for it. I bought a Bratwurst for £6 and it was literally the biggest sausage I had ever seen (please get your dirty thoughts out of your mind), I couldn't eat all of it but I gave it a good damn try. As much as I had planned to eat as much as possible, this hotdog filled me up and I couldn't even think about eating anything else all day which, on the bright side, my bank account was thankful for.

I also got a delicious hot chocolate after much deliberation about the price, £4 for this tiny mug! But it was super yummy so I guess can't complain, plus you're paying for the experience of 'having a hot chocolate at the German Market' which bumps up that price. I had to stop myself from attempting to steal the adorable mug, I can't lie that the only reason I didn't was because of my morals but instead the deciding factor not to take it was that I had to put down a £3 deposit on the mug before she would give the hot chocolate to me, and I couldn't part with that £3.

My boyfriend bought three bags of hand packaged sweets, they'd be the perfect little presents for friends at £1.50 each, I particularly liked the bag of gummy snakes, you know the ones with that foamy stuff on the bottom?. For £1.50 you got a lot of sweets which I didn't expect at the market. He also bought a box of donuts which weren't anywhere near as expensive as I thought they would've been! Maybe I created this image in my head that with pretty, christmassy commercial things like the German Market, it can't be affordable, which is true in a lot of cases but not in this one.

I thought that I could spend hours on end looking at everything the market had to offer, but after eating, doing a lap of the stalls and drinking something to warm up a bit, we had seen everything and ran out of things to do. I thought there would be music but maybe that's just on the weekends when the town centre is jam packed, I wasn't underwhelmed but I also wasn't overly excited by anything. Like I said before, the stalls are nice and all but they're quite pricey and, in my mind, a little gimmicky.

So do I think the Christmas Market is worth it? I think if you're coming to Birmingham specifically for the market then it's underwhelming but if you're going shopping in the town centre anyway, then the market is a nice little extra place to go to get something to eat and drink as well as mooching around to get a bit festive. It's something different than just sitting in a pub and it's always nice to have a change of scenery. I think it looks really pretty and gets everyone in the Christmas mood, the food and drinks are great and not too expensive but the stalls aren't my favourites - I'll leave it at that.

MY CHRISTMAS DECOR AND PLANS ON A STUDENT BUDGET

It is somehow already the last month of 2019 - how did that happen? Now we've reached December that means only two things are on my mind; cosy nights in with endless amounts of hot chocolate and, obviously, Christmas. Yes, it is the festive month and I am so incredibly excited. I have already decorated my flat and planned a bunch of Christmas activities that I can fill my December with, so  I thought I would share these with you to get you in the festive mood! Also, just a quick note to say, if you don't celebrate Christmas I apologise for the bombardment of festive themes that me and many other bloggers are probably hitting you with over this month.

(our beautiful Christmas tree ft the creepy snowman candle on the windowsill)

(another thing, the tree is a tad wonky because my boyfriend wanted his figurine of The Rock to be the tree topper, so poor little Dwayne is stuck to a kebab stick which is then in turn stuck to my star tree topper.)

Decorating on a budget! 

At first, I thought that using Amazon would mean finding a cheaper Christmas tree and decorations but when we started looking online the prices were still way more than what we wanted to pay, so we set aside a day to venture off into town and mooch about till we found some cheaper alternatives. First we started in one of the two charity shops in Birmingham town centre and found a load of little decorations including; the £1 star tree topper,  a £4 bag of multi coloured baubles, £1 strips of tinsel that I wrapped around out curtain poles, a kind of creepy snowman candle and some brand new 'Merry Christmas' banners. It was nice that whilst also buying cheaper festive decorations we were giving money towards something helpful, even if when we got home the baubles had no strings to actually hang them on the tree.

We also quickly looked around Primark, where we bought some more £1 tinsel (the silver strips on the tree) and the tiny, purple, orange, green and pink baubles that were only £1 in the reduced items section. At this point though, we still didn't have a tree to put all of these decorations on. Luckily B&M pulled through and we bought a 6ft Christmas Tree for only £12! I feel like an adult now I have my own Christmas Tree, it's odd. We also bought some fairy lights for the tree, I love fairy lights and I have already got lights strung around the whole circumference of the living room, these lights were only £5 but they flash on and off a lot making it a little intense but I can live with it. B&M also saved us from our stringless baubles and we bought a pack of 30 baubles that matched our Primark ones perfectly, plus they were half the price of the ones we nearly bought off Amazon - I'm a sucker for savings. I have to add a little disclaimer, the tree is a tad wonky because my boyfriend wanted his figurine of The Rock to be the tree topper, so poor little Dwayne is stuck to a kebab stick which is then in turn stuck to my star tree topper.

My Christmas haul cost just about £35 and we got more than we needed in hindsight really. It may not be pinterest worthy but, to me, it's absolutely perfect.

Plans for this month!

One thing I am really looking forward to is going to the German Market here in Birmingham. The whole thing just looks gorgeous and even though I've walked through it many times since it opened last month I haven't had the chance to actually properly look or visit any of the stalls there. I do have plans to go there this week to eat and drink there, I've been told they do alcoholic hot chocolate which is something I can't miss out on.

I'm also planning to do a lot of crying while looking at the 'Black Friday' sales, thinking of all them shoes and clothes that I don't need but want to buy. Even though there are sales, things are still so expansive and I can do some serious damage online shopping, plus people are being sneaky this year, like did anyone else see ASOS raising their original prices to make their sales look like better savings?

As well as spending money, I'm also going to be spending time with my family. I don't get to see too much of them now I live further away so I can't wait to see everyone and get down the pub because "why not, it's Christmas". I'm also really looking forward to the release of the 'Little Women' movie, I know it's not particularly Christmassy but the trailer has enticed me.

I'm also working on some Christmas and New Year party outfit blogposts as well as make up Instagram videos because I've actually been teaching myself some more exciting make up looks which I am quite proud of.

A friends Christmas!

Even though I'm going back home for Christmas I still wanted to do Christmas with all my friends here in Birmingham. We've planned a 'Friends Christmas' at our flat so we're having our own Christmas day like two weeks before the actual day. We will be eating a gourmet dinner freshly sourced from the Iceland party food section, and it will be a picnic style affair as my dinner table only just fits two people. Also we're all living off the last of out student loans so instead of buying each of our friends a present we're doing a Secret Santa so everyone still has something to commemorate this sure to be spectacular event.

I'm super excited for December and I really hope it meets all my Christmassy expectations. Wether or not you're celebrating Christmas, I hope you all have a lovely month with your friends and family!