Trying out the Zoella x Colourpop range

Until about a month ago now I'd never ordered any makeup from the US. I skipped out on the Kylie phase because wow the customs fees people got hit with and also wow the prices and also wow I just wasn't into the Kardashians enough for that. But the Zoella x Colourpop collab just got me. I've been wanting to try something from Colourpop for roughly forever and I got the chance to do so with free shipping and no chance of getting hit with extra customs charges.

Affordable base makeup from No7

No7 is definitely a brand that I completely looked over until a couple of years ago. I just feel as though they don't aim themselves at a young demographic, and the brand's always had an air of 'this is what my Grandma would use'. Except it's actually incredible??? I'm fully ready to embrace my inner Grandma on any given occasion, so it's not a surprise that this is no different.

Trying out Soap and Glory makeup

I think it's pretty clear by this point that I'm no beauty blogger, BUT makeup does make me feel that extra snippet more confident, especially when I'm at work. Soap & Glory have been one of my favourite skincare brands for a couple of years now, and mostly because their products just smell so damn good. Now though, I'm a full convert to their makeup range too, and it's definitely one of the most underrated ones I've come across.

March favourites and life update

March was one of those months that you spend gearing up for things. Or at least, it was for me. I finally booked my driving test (which I'll be taking later this month, eeek), and we've been hunting for a new home to start renting towards the end of this month. We still haven't found one, or sorted out the house, or made any attempts at packing whatsoever. Can you tell I'm *slightly* stressed about it?

NYX 24 days of lipsticks

I'll let you in on a little secret: beauty advent calendars are fab, but post-Christmas beauty advent calendars on sale are even better. I've been wanting to get my hands on a NYX lipstick vault (you know the dreamy ones I mean) for just about forever, but who knows when I'll be able to justify spending a buttload of money on one, especially when it'll naturally come with shades that I don't want? 
My sister and I picked up this NYX advent calendar filled with mini lippies just after Christmas, splitting the cost and the lipsticks between us. Now, I won't lie, there are definitely a couple missing from this post, rattling around a handbag or coat pocket somewhere, but here's a roundup of 22 of them. 
From top to bottom, the swatches and lipsticks above are as follows: Butter Lipstick in shade 'Seashell'  Butter Gloss in shade 'Fortune Cookie' Butter Gloss in shade 'Raspberry Tart' Intense Butter Gloss in shade 'Pink Macaron' Butter Gloss in shade 'Sugar Cookie' Lip Lingerie in shade 'Silk Indulge' Matte Lipstick in shade 'Indie Flick' Liquid Suede in shade 'Soft Spoken' Soft Matte Lip Cream in shade 'Buenos Aires' Lip Lingerie in shade 'Seduction' Simply Red Lip Cream in shade 'Leading Lady'

My favourite of these was the palest shade; the butter lipstick. I'm not usually into pinkish nudes, but this one was hella creamy, and actually suited me. My lips have been incredibly chapped recently, so I was definitely in need of something that wouldn't dry them out further, and this fit the bill. I've excluded the Soft Spoken liquid suede lipstick from this because it's my favourite all time lipstick (literally the perfect nude) and it just wouldn't be fair to pit the rest against it.

Aaaand on to part two: Matte Lipstick in shade 'Shocking Pink' Soft Matte Lip Cream in shade 'Paris' Matte Lipstick in shade 'Indie Flick' Intense Butter Lip Gloss in shade 'Tres Leches' Lip lingerie in shade 'Embellishment' Matte lipstick in shade 'Up the Bass' Butter lipstick in shade 'Root Beer Float' Butter lipstick in shade 'Ripe Berry' Soft Matte Lip Cream in shade 'Copenhagen' Simply Vamp Lip Cream in shade 'She Devil' Liquid suede in shade 'Stone Fox'

I had a clear favourite in this half - the 'Indie Flick' matte lipstick. Not only am I a red lip girl through and through, but matte lipsticks just last so much longer, and I needed that for my Crimbo limbo snacking phase. The butter lipsticks are in beautiful shades, and I'm determined to get a lot of use out of them this month by wearing them into work.
All in all, I'm fairly excited to push myself out of my colour range comfort zone and into brighter territories. I'm officially in love with NYX again. 
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Makeup brush cleaning wipes: do they actually work?!

We can all agree that cleaning makeup brushes is one of the worst chores out there. I mean, it's on par with changing the bed sheets. Both chores make you feel amazing and totally in control of your adult life when they're done, but the process is just ugh. 
Cleaning my brushes is something I just totally forget to do. That is until they're full on grimy, covered in product and I can't use them without breaking out. We've all been there (right?!).It doesn't make the cleaning situation any easier. Instead of a quick weekly clean, I end up doing a super long every-time-I-remember clean, which is nowhere near weekly. 
There are so many brush cleaning products out there at the moment. You've got solid cleansers, liquid cleaners, gel cleansers, mitts, brushes to clean your brushes. The list goes on. But, Ecotools do makeup brush cleansing wipes. I'd never heard of such a thing and had to try them.
You use them by placing a wipe on the palm of your hand and swirling the brush around your palm to get rid of product. I was so excited to give these a go, and honestly kinda expected them to be a miracle product that would make brush cleaning quick and easy. 
To be brutally honest, I was completely disappointed. They barely touch my foundation-encrusted brushes, and probably took about as much makeup off them as it would just using my hand. I was gutted.  However, there is a silver lining! Ecotools recommends using these for minor cleaning, which was totally not what I was trying to go for, and they actually have a brush shampoo to pair with the wipes for a deeper clean. This is not a sponsored post, I just love the ethos behind this company!
Having given them a couple of goes now (there's 25 in a pack so why not experiment?!) I can say that they can come in handy. They're pretty fab at removing powder makeup. So, I now have a quick, portable way to clean my eyeshadow and powder brushes. But, I'm still on the hunt for a good all round brush cleaner. Please send me your recommendations, because I need to get a new one asap!
What's your favourite type of brush cleanser to use?
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Rimmel's new Insta range*: does it live up to the hype?

Rimmel has brought out a wealth of new products lately, and their Insta range is a bigun. Whoever does their PR was onto a winner when they created a massive list of bloggers to send their new bits and pieces out to: it feels like this range has been on everyone's lips for the past few weeks. I've spent a little while now testing everything in the range and I've definitely got some firm favourites that have me a little bowled over.

High end vs high street makeup dupes look

We all love a good dupe, don't we? I recently created a look on my Youtube channel that had me using high end makeup on one side of my face, and high street products on the other. I used the same products for my base on both side (No 7 foundation, concealer, blusher and Urban Decay eye shadow), and switched up my eyeliner, mascara, brow product and lipstick. In the above picture, the left hand side of my face as you look at it is the high street version, and the right side is the high end one.

Testing cult beauty blogger makeup | New in from Sephora

I read a LOT of beauty blog posts. And the more you read, the more you see familiar names cropping up time and time again. When I got the opportunity to head to Sephora in April, there were a few particular products that come under what I like to call 'cult beauty blogger products'. You know the ones: those bits that it feels like everybody and their mum has tried. I'm talking Liz Earle's cleanse and Polish (which even I've written a post on here), I'm talking the Kylie lip kits, I'm talking sheet masks. You get the gist. 
I picked my top four 'must have' cult beauty blogger picks and today we're  going to be chatting about whether or not they live up to the hype.

April favourites and a look back over the month

April was definitely the best month of 2017 so far for me. It was filled with about a zillion ounces of stress, but so much fun and joy managed to totally balance that out. As you probably all know, I spent two weeks in Florida in the first half of the month and it was amazing! We did a huge range of things, from visiting Harry Potter World (amazing, of course) to seeing first hand what a gun range was like (terrifying). I truly feel like a got a good all round glimpse at what being in the state was like, and it was a massive check off of my bucket list!

Putting Rimmel's Provocalips* lipstick to the test

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Rimmel's lip ranges. They're affordable, easy to pop on and wipe off and are always on 3 for 2 in Superdrug, or at least it feels that way to me! But Rimmel liquid lipsticks? Well I've simply never tried one. 
I've been a little spoilt with liquid lipsticks, as I didn't get to the game too early, and so the first brand I tried was NYX. They are just fab at bringing out well pigmented, long lasting lip colours. 
Rimmel's Provocalips range* comes with the tagline '16-hour kiss proof lipstick', so a couple of days I decided to put this to the test.

A Massive Boots Haul!

It feels like a bit of a week of firsts here on Nourish ME: first I had my first ever book review, and now here's my first ever Boots haul. I know this is something that almost every blogger to ever have existed has written before, but I wanted to give it a go, and after splashing out a little bit a couple of weeks ago I wanted to share my picks with you! Plus, I feel like I got a nice, large range of goodies so there's something for everyone (hopefully) in here.
I'm lucky enough to have an absolutely massive Boots in my new town, with a whole section dedicated to NYX's entire beauty range *swoons*. So, in the past few months I've been taking full advantage of the sheer size of the place and I feel like I've only just finished trawling through every single shelf. And now they're about to bring all of their Christmas goodies out so I'm going to need to start all over again. Whoops. 
Anyhow, I started off in the skin care section, which is definitely my favourite aspect of beauty, and leaves me practically drooling to have an endless skincare routine full of magical products. Realistically I'm pretty darn lazy and I've spent the last three months trying to use up all of my long-forgotten skin care stashes. 
However, after reading about 1000 blog posts raving about it, the Liz Earle Hot Cloth Cleanser has been on my must-buy list for a while. The one that I picked up is recommended as the starter kit, and contains 100ml of the cleanser as well as two muslin clothes. I'm pretty excited to get started on this, as so many people have said that it will work wonders on my skin ... *fingers crossed*. 
The next skin care piece I picked up was one of Soap & Glory's Happy Pamper £5 gift sets. My sister was more than a little horrified by the fact that I had bought a gift set for myself, but I wanted to try the minis of the Righteous Butter and Clean on Me shower gel before forking out for the larger ones. Both products smell amazing, and I'm hoping they live up to their rep too! 
Picking up this Ted Baker mini body spray was a bit of a wildcard (aka impulse buy). I can't wear perfume to work as I handle people's food as a waitress, but I can get away with a body mist. For £3 I couldn't resist picking this up, as I've never been let down by a Ted Baker scent before. 
Right, now I've bored you all to death with my skin care rambles, let's talk about what you're actually interested in: the makeup. I knew that I had two Youtube videos planned that I needed some supplies for, and now that I've actually filmed both (though neither is up yet) I can tell you what they are. I decided to follow up my watermelon makeup look video with a peach one and a blueberry one. 
So, I hit the NYX stand with a furious look of intent in my eyes, ready to fill my basket up. And fill it I did. First I picked up the soft matte lip cream in Buenos Aires, which is a slightly pink toned peach. This is something that I would never normally go for, but actually it kind of worked! Then I got a littttle bit distracted from my main goal and went for their lingerie lipstick in Exotic. This was the first time that I'd seen the Lingerie range in person, so I couldn't resist. Exotic is one of the darker shades of the range, and is fairly similar in colour to their liquid suede lipstick in Soft Spoken. My final NYX lipstick purchase was their soft matte lip cream in Moscow. This is a navy shade, and was perfect for my blueberry inspired makeup look! To go with the latter I picked up their vivid brights eyeliner in sapphire. This one is definitely bright, and has pretty much already revolutionized my opinion of eyeliners that aren't plain black; I'm a little bit in love.
So that's it for my Boots haul - if you don't fancy reading all of my rambling (I do try to cut these posts down to make them a reasonable length!), then why not have a peek at the Youtube video I filmed of the haul?!

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Everyday Nude Makeup Look

I really feel like I haven't shown my Naked 3 palette off to you guys enough, even though I've had it for three months now, so tah-dah! There is a post coming soon with a full-on review and swatches, but it's such a fundamental part of my everyday nude makeup routine that I couldn't not show you a cheeky picture. 
This palette is the first (and only) piece of high-end makeup that I've ever owned, if you exclude a MAC lipstick or two, and so I've been chomping at the bit to give you all a low down and an insight into what I use it for!
Here's the video of my everyday nude makeup look using my Naked 3 palette! I hope you enjoy it, and all of the products I have used are linked in the videos' description box.

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August Favourites + Life Update

Right, so this post was meant to go up four? Five? days ago now and yet here we are. I've been a little AWOL from the blogosphere and life in general for almost a week now due to being ill and then rammed with lots of long shifts at work (ugh). But, I'm lucky enough to have this Monday off (praise the gods of irregular customer service work hours, right?) after having worked allll weekend, so I've actually got time to share my August favourites with you!
I'm sorry about the really long rambly nature of this post but, urm, I've been up since 6 30am, and am writing this at 8am, which is basically unheard of in Steph's life. I'm much more of a night owl than an early bird, let's face it. So, yeah, tiredness is creeping in and my brain doesn't start to fully function for a good couple of hours. At least it's partly down to working lates at the pub rather than pure laziness, which makes it okay, right?!
So, what was August filled with for me? Disappointingly, not a summer holiday to some far off toasty destination filled with sun loungers and cool breezes. BUT, I did get to visit Camden again, which I've written all about for you here. We made the trip down for my sister's birthday, and it definitely made me want to visit more parts of the UK before the year is out, so *fingers crossed* Nourish ME will have some more travel posts coming soon! I also finally started to feel settled in my new town, secure in my part time job and landed my first big freelance paycheck for an editorial position I have on an academic journal. All in all, despite a little mental health setback mid-month, August was pretty fab for me, and now I'm excited to see what September holds!
My favourites for the month are pretty much entirely beauty related, but as I've been trying to really up my makeup skills this summer, it's hardly a surprise. First up is a lipstick in the shade Boho Nude from the new Rimmel by Kate 15th Anniversary range. I love pretty much everything about this range, I'm not going to lie - the dreamy rose gold packaging, the creamy formula, the hue of the lipsticks themselves, the list goes on. I'm wearing this in the picture above, which gives you some idea of the actual shade. It's a brown based lipstick with beige tones that is neither too light nor too dark for my pale skin tone. This has been my go-to every day at work for the past few weeks and I just can't get enough!
Alongside this, I've been reaching for my MUA Undress Your Skin shimmer highlighter in iridescent gold. It's getting to that time of year again when shimmer highlight and berry lips are all we need to feel totally Autumny and I've definitely been preparing for this in all the right ways. This totally suits my pink-toned pale skin and I'll definitely be wearing it all through the coming months!
Next up, we have some skincare favourites. We all know how much I loved Garnier's micellar water, after I finally jumped on that bandwagon a few months ago. When I ran out, I wanted to give their Pure Active micellar water a go to see how it compared. It's been really great at removing all of my grotty makeup at the end of the day, even my waterproof mascara, but I do think the original still slightly tops it. 
A little bit of a fun favourite is this new(ish) Love Hearts hand soap from Carex. I usually avoid liquid soap as I recently found out that this is what was setting off the eczema on my hands that I was suffering with. But, I HAD to have this - it smells like love hearts, so how could I resist? I can use it sparingly with no reaction on my hands so this has worked well alongside my normal soap bar. I've tried pretty much everything else in Carex's fun range - bubblegum, strawberry laces, cola bottles, so I could hardly not give this a go!
And finally we have the odd one out here - socks. I have a bit of a thing for cute, quirky socks, and if my anxiety is feeling bad in the morning, popping one of my favourite pairs on does lift my mood, as odd as that may be. I couldn't resist having these adorable little koala socks (similar here) with bobble ears in my favourites this month, and so many people have commented about how much they want them on my Instagram! 
Here's my video roundup of my favourites, which is a little more coherent (I hope) and a lot less rambly. I'd love it if you gave it a watch!

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