Mallzee - Social Shopping

It's been a while since I posted last but I heard about a great new site and just had to blog about it!

Mallzee is a new shopping site where you can create your own online shopping mall. There are currently over 200 brands signed up to the site, Urban Outfitters, New Look, Feel Unique and St. Tropez to name a few. 

You can drag the stores you want into your mall and you can browse all the products in one place!

Even better, you can connect to Facebook and Twitter and make shopping online more social! 

Once you've browsed and found all the goodies you want you can create polls to share on social networks for your friends to vote. It's a girly shopping day online! I love getting together with friends to shop and have a couple of cocktails but when the weather is horrible it's just not so appealing. Now you can make an online shopping date and stay warm and cosy, you can even have cocktails!

An added bonus to inviting friends to your mallzee is that as the ‘owner’ you earn money every time anyone buys from your Mallzee, including you! (That's right you get paid when you shop?) You can sign up for a prelaunch invite now at www,mallzee.com

L'Oreal Mythic Oil

I've posted before about being introduced to Moroccanoil and falling in love with it. I absolutely love this product but wanted to find a more affordable alternative.

After a little searching I came across L'Oreal Mythic Oil which is much more affordable, 125ml for £13.55.

I find it gives just as good results as the more expensive versions, but suits my budget a lot better.

I have shoulder length hair, it's fine but there's lots and lots and lots of it. I use 2 pumps before blow drying and my hair is gorgeously soft and supple feeling. My hair tends to be a little dry because of regular colouring, blow drying, straightening, curling, and all the other things we do to our poor hair. I also use a little after straightening to finish off my style and tame any flyaways.

Highly recommend this little gem of a product no matter what hair type you have.

Benefit B.right Skincare

I was lucky enough to win a competition and received lots of Benefit goodies! I was super excited because I've recently rediscovered my love of this range. Benefit was the first premium make up range I bought, longer ago than I care to think....

A couple of the products I received were from the B.right range. Benefit say you'll have skin so bright you'll need a dimmer switch! Sounds good to me!

I received the Foamingly Clean Facial Wash. It's £16.50 for 127.5g. I'm a bit wary of facial washes in general but I gave it a go.

I have quite dry skin and  normally go for rich feeling cream cleansers. You only have to use a tiny amount of this gorgeous creamy cleanser, massage in, and then rinse off. My skin is left feeling very soft, not at all tight, and very clean. I still need to use eye make up remover to get rid of the mascara but it removes evgerything else really well.

Next is the Triple Performing Facial Emulsion. Priced at £19.50 for 50.3ml.

This is a perfect day cream as it has SPF15, and we all know how important an SPF is. it's a nice light moissturiser, oil free and smells gorgeous. I've only been using this a few days but love it so far.

I already had the Total Moisture Facial Cream and have been using this for a couple of months.

This is a very rich feeling cream, for me more suited as a night cream. It has a gorgeous fresh smell and feels very light but nourishing. I absolutely love it and feel mlike it gives a really nice moisture boost without being greasy or heavy feeling. This is priced at £26.50 for 48.2g.

All in all, I'm in love with this range and am very tempted to try the othe rproducts in the range. Benefit say this range will give your skin such radiance that you'll need a dimmer switch and so far I'm finding that to be true!

Allo products available from Benefit.

Benefit Hello Flawless

I'm now on my second of the Hello Flawless powders and recently bought Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow liquid foundation.

First the liquid foundation:

I find it so so hard to find a foundation that doesn't dry out my skin, and I've bought pretty much every foundation Benefit have brought out over the years, and always been in love at the start and then disappointed after a week or two. I bought this expecting it to be the same but I have been very pleasantly surprised! This has become my go to foundation for every day.

It's oil free, has SPF25, has a brightening effect and is buildable in coverage level. I have pretty uneven skin but I don't like to look like I've caked on foundation. SPF is a big plus for me, I love the sun but have the damage it does to my skin, and we all know how ageing sun damage is! This is a very liquid foundation, very thin in texture but goes on nicely with a foundation brush and you only need the tiniest amount, I don't even use a full pump. That gives me a decent coverage. It stays put for about 12 hours before needing a touch up, another big bonus for me!

Now the powder:

Powder is another big bugbear for me, I like to use it to set my foundation and give a nice polished look but find lots of them too drying. This powder can be used with a brush to give fine coverage or with a sponge (both are included) to give more heavy coverage. The powder has a very fine texture, almost like talcum powder, and again I only use a small amount and get a good result, in fact I find too much can start to look a bit cakey. The brush that comes with the powder is nice enough, very soft but kind of small and I have a set of brushes that I use but it's handy for those on the go touch ups, if you need them.

All in all, 4 stars from me, and only because the liquid is only available in 9 shades and the powder in 10 shades so a bit limiting in who can find a shade to suit. I've been desperate to love a Benefit foundation for a long time and finally I do!

Available here: Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow and Hello Flawless Powder, both £24.50   

Shellac Manicure & Pedicure

 I got a great deal on a Shellac mani and pedi, £12 for each. My plan was to have them  done for my upcoming trip to Ibiza but, typically, I could only get an appointment for 2 weeks before...Never mind, I was optimistic and hoped it would last!

Off I went to get pampered! Now, I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my nails, normally painting them twice a week because they get a bit chipped or smudged or something that bugs the life out of me. Today was day 7 of the Shellac and my toenails are holding up well, no doubt they'll last through the holiday but the fingernails were dented, growing out quickly and not even enough for me.

I removed the nails tonight, after doing lots of research on how to remove it without doing horrendous damage to my nails.

The method that sounded best, and I tried, was this:

1. Cut cotton pads into quarters and saturate with nail polish remover (with acetone)
2. Place a cotton pad quarter onto nails and wrap in tinfoil (this helps warm things up and speeds up the process)
3. Leave for 15 mins (some people say 10 some 20 so I averaged it out)
4. Take the cotton pads and tinfoil off and scrape away the Shellac with an orange stick

I found that after 15 minutes the Shellac was all loose and very easily to scrape away, no stubborn bits left. My cuticles and nails looked very dry but once I gave my hands a good wash they looked fine. My hands need a little TLC with some good handcream but that's never a bad thing, is it?

My verdict on Shellac? I probably won't get a manicure again but I will get a pedicure done again.

Sephora Haul!

I was lucky enough to have a fantastic holiday in Las Vegas recently and had a couple of trips to Sephora! There isn't a Sephora close to me so I always visit when I'm close to one. It's one of my happy places. Audrey Hepburn says nothing bad can ever happen in Tiffany's (so so true) and I think she'd say the same of Sephora.

I made 2 trips 1 week and got a little bundle of stuff!

Nails Inc 3D Glitter Nail Polish

Laura Mercier Flawless Face Kit

Benefit Moisturiser and an Urban Decay Naked 2 palette.

I will do reviews on all these goodies and others I've been trying lately.

Nails Inc 3D Glitter Nail Polish

I couldn't resist buying a couple of these, especially since I was in the US and it was such as saving on UK prices. They are available at Nails Inc at £11.

I chose Maida Vale, a silver glitter which has a touch of blue in it, and Marylebone, a pink glitter with a touch of purple and a silvery pink in it.

They go on very smoothly, you can get away with 1 coat, and they look amazing on!

Grunge Get The Look Up Do


I was in Boots last night shopping for a birthday present when I saw this kit


Get The Look Up Do and couldn't resist trying it out. With 2 weddings in the next month or so I really want to do something a little different with my hair so thought I'd try it out.

Here's what I ended up with...

The kit comes with:

• Hair donuts (big and small) enable you to create the height and volume essential for this look
• pins
• grips
• pintail comb
• snag-free hair band
• black diamanté-encrusted hair band completes the look

The box also has a barcode you can scan with your smartphone to get a video tutorial.


Armed with all the tools and my Ipad I went to work!


I'm not the best at styling and tend to get frustrated when things don't look how they do on all the tutorials I look at but this was pretty easy to recreate.


First, you seperate hair into 2 sections, 1 in front of the ears and 1 behind. Take the hair behind the ears and put into a high ponytail using the snag-free hair band. Select a donut and feed the ponytail through. Pin this in place. Take the front sections of hair and pin back or create a quiff. Then back comb your ponytail for volume, wrap around the donut and then get pinning to secure your do!


I'd say this took me about 10 minutes to create and looks great for any occasion. I'm wearing the look for daytime so haven't used the hair band. It's a look you can dress up or down so it's very versatile and easy to achieve.

Magnetic Nail Polish

I love a nail trend and was super excited when I heard about magnetic polish! I invested and immediately tried it out...disaster! Then I did a little research and got some tips on technique and was a little happier. I went for Nails Inc in Trafalgar Square which is a metallic grey, sort of a gun metal gray. Other colours available from Nails Inc are Houses of Parliament, purple and Whitehall, greeny blue. I've used this polish a few times now and it's tricky to get a good result, but I think it looks amazing when you do! The trick is to apply 1 coat and let it dry, then do a second coat using the magnet. You need to work fast with the magnet so paint 1 nail at a time, then hold the magnet over the nail for about a minute. The range is available at at £13 each. Love you Sus xxx

Moroccanoil

I was a bit sceptical when I kept hearing about Moroccanoil. Surely oil would give me greasy hair? 

Then 2 people personally recommended it to me (including my hairdresser), so I thought why not? You can buy a 25ml bottle on www.feelunique.com for £12.85. There are 2 versions available and I went for the fine and light coloured hair version. I received it just before Christmas and have used it 3/4 times a week since then and only got through about 1/4 of the bottle - pretty damn impressive.

I use a blob about the size of a 1p and work it through my hair before blow drying. I love love love the way it leaves my hair feeling. Now, I'm pretty lazy about blow drying my hair and tend to just blast it and then straighten - not good for the condition of my hair at all but with this stuff I'm left with silky soft hair! 

I think it's pretty good value when you take into account how long the bottle will last - I'm guessing 3-4 months