2012 / Carissa May

Pout - The every day lip colour

30 Sept 2012

Pout is one lipstick that I have been loving recently. I am very safe when it comes to lips, I like to wear a natural colour that doesn't scream look at my lips. I just feel that brighter colours don't suit me - as much as I wish they did! Anyway, Pout is the perfect pinky nude lipstick, which is a great every day colour. This is my current go to lipstick, which I have been wearing most days.

Avon Ultra Colour Rich Lipstick Satin in Pout - £7.00

The first thing I noticed about this lipstick is just how moisturising it is, when applied it feels just like a balm(as you can see in the above picture!). As it is so creamy there is no need to apply lip balm first and this is saying something as I am someone who suffers from dry lips! I would say staying power is average, I do not notice it lasting longer or shorter than many other lipsticks. But as it is so creamy I enjoy applying this to my lips and often find myself reapplying after a few hours to add some more moisture.

If you like this lipstick it is currently on offer at Avon.co.uk. It is usually £7.00 for one, but you can buy two for £6.00 across a range of products - such good value!

What do you think of Avons lipsticks?

Love Carissa XXX

Emerald Green Biba Ruby Zip Purse

25 Sept 2012

After somehow losing my purse at the beginning of the year, I opted for a nice coral purse from River Island. However, after a couple of weeks I could tell this was not a good idea. As the purse was not leather (or even plastic) it picked up any little dirt and before long it looked old and tatty. It got to the point that I was embarrased to take it out of my handbag, and it wasn't even that old!

So I decided it was about time to treat myself to a new purse and as soon as I saw this one, I knew I had to buy it! I just love bright coloured purses - much easier to find in your handbag - and this was such a beautiful emerald green colour.

Biba Ruby Zip Purse - £99 (House of Fraser)

At almost £100 it is not cheap, however it is most definitely worth the price tag! It is 100% leather and great quality, this is a purse that will not show wear and tear. I have had it for over a month now and it still looks brand new (the same could not be said for my River Island purse!).

I always like to have lots of space to put my cards (as I seem to have so many?! Can you spot the Beauty card?) and so I love how much space there is in the purse (12 slots). There is also plenty more space to put them infront of the slot, along with receipts and whatever else! The coin area has two sections to it, and is zipped up to keep your money safe.

Overall I am very happy with my purchase and although it is more than I usually pay, it will definitely last a lot longer and so is a lot better value for money. A++

What are your favourite purse brands?

Love Carissa XXX

Giveaway Winner

20 Sept 2012

So my giveaway ended Tuesday night and I spent most of tonight going through the entries to ensure it was as fair as possible. I received so many entries, lots more than expected - so thank you ALL!

I wish you could all be winners, but unfortunately there is only one. However, I am so happy to announce that the winner is Anca!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Anca has been a very loyal follower for a long time now, so she more than deserves it <3 I have sent you an e-mail so get back to me asap.

Sorry to those who didn't win, but maybe next time :) I will definitely be holding another one when I reach another milestone.

I hope you are all having a good week, look out for some new posts coming soon.

Love Carissa XXX

Giveaway ends tonight!!

18 Sept 2012

If you haven't already entered my 300 follower giveaway then get on over to my post HERE. There is currently just 8 hours and 10 minutes left to enter, so get entering to win an OPI mini set of your choice (out of the 4 shown).

7 different ways to use YSL Touche Eclat

16 Sept 2012

YSL Touche Eclat - £25.00 // John Lewis

I recently purchased the beauty blogger holy grail product that is YSL Touche Eclat. I have used this before, but have not purchased it for a while now, so decided to treat myself. I managed to get the 20th anniversary special edition, which I was very happy about - doesn't it look beautiful! I thought rather than doing a review I would show you 7 different ways in which you can use this product.

Contrary to popular belief, this is not a concealer, it is a highlighter. Therefore do not expect this to cover up blemishes and black circles! However it still has many uses, like the following;

1. Under the eyes - probably the most common way to use this product. However, it is best to apply concealer first, followed by Touch Eclat to brighten up the area. Also, rather than rubbing it in, dab it to help luminize the area by reflecting light. To avoid white areas below the eye, apply the product at the top of your cheekbones and blend upwards.

2. Down the centre of the nose - this helps to make the nose appear slimmer.

3. Under the brow bone - like when you apply a highlighter below your brow, you can also apply Touch Eclat. This helps to open up your eyes, and give the illusion of more defined brows.

4. On the eyelids as an eyeshadow base - this will help prevent any creasing and keep your eyeshadow on a lot longer.

5. Along the edge of your lips - this will make your lips appear a lot fuller, especially with lipstick.

6. On the top of your cheekbones - like many other highlighters, this is a great way to enhance your cheekbones.

7. Inner and outer corners of eyes - this will help to brighten your eyes and make them appear a lot bigger.

Overall, the best tip I have found is to look in a mirror with your chin down and apply the products to the areas that are dark. That will really help to illuminize your face. My final look was the following :

How else do you like to use highlighters?

Love Carissa XXX

p.s My giveaway ends Tuesday, so keep entering!

I'm backkkkkk!

12 Sept 2012

Hello my lovelies!

I am back from Spain, oh how I wish I was still there! I created a little collage of some pictures I took, but unfortunately I didn't really take many at all whilst I was there (...so unlike me), so this was the best I could do.

I had a fabulous time and got to try some amazing Paella, mmmm! Why do holidays always fly by though :( Now I am back at work, wishing the day by so I can leave at 5pm - not the best way to live but hey!

I have had an amazing response to my giveaway which I am very pleased about, so please do keep entering. In the mean time, I managed to try out some new products on holiday including a tan accelerator which worked wonders, so keep your eyes peeled for a review on that.

Has anyone else been on holiday recently? If so where did you go? I love all things travel related, so do share!

Love Carissa XXX

Quick Reminder

4 Sept 2012

Hey lovelies,

Just a quick reminder, if you haven't already entered my 300 follower giveaway then get on over to my post HERE. There is currently just 2 weeks left to enter, so get entering to win an OPI mini set of your choice (out of the 4 shown).

Also remember, you can earn more entries each day by tweeting about the giveaway everyday!

Love Carissa XXX

Battle of the Dry Shampoo's

30 Aug 2012

After hearing so many good things about Superdrugs own dry shampoo I thought I would give it a go. I have tried mutiple dry shampoo's now and find myself always going back to Batiste, but many have said this was even better than Batiste, so my expectations were high!

I bought these a few months back on offer for buy one get two free, costing me around £1.99 for all three - I couldn't go wrong I thought! After spraying my roots with 'Spirit of the Carnival' I looked into the mirror and did not see any change...so I sprayed some more! This time there was a change, but not for the better - my hair appeared to look more oily and damp looking! I thought maybe I had a faulty bottle, so I tried the other 2 and suffered the same problem. Rather than spraying a fine looking powder, it just appeared to spray clear like a hairspray - which is not what I want in a dry shampoo.

As you may be able to tell, I do not recommend this product at all. I am really quite disappointed after hearing such great things and to find it is actually one of the worst dry shampoos I have tried. I honestly do not think you can beat batiste. I cannot comment for brunettes, or those with darker coloured hair, but for blondes they are perfect to use on those days when you can't be bothered to wash your hair and are looking to freshen it up.

Has anyone else tried Superdrugs dry shampoo? If so, what did you think?

Love Carissa XXX

España here I come

27 Aug 2012

Ok is it just me, or does everyone else find packing a very stressful task. I had it all planned this weekend to get packing out of the way so I could write some blog posts to schedule for whilst I am away. But no, it wasn't that simple. I spent most of my weekend tidying, washing and packing leaving me with little time to write posts!

I therefore need to apologise that whilst I am on holiday there unfortunately will not be many posts on my blog :( I am currently writing this post at 1am when I should be asleep, however I didn't want to leave you guys wondering where I had disappeared too.

As you can tell from the title I am off to Spain for 10 days and I honestly cannot wait for this well earned break!! I am taking quite a few products with me to try out, so will be reviewing them when I get back. In the mean time, make sure you enter my giveaway to win an OPI mini set :)

Also, for future reference does anyone have any tips on how to make packing as un-stressful as possible?

Love Carissa XXX

100 posts Giveaway!

21 Aug 2012

So, it is that time of the year :) I said a while ago that once I reach 300 followers I will do a giveaway to thank all you lovely followers for being so great and I also decided that I would announce this on my 100th post, so here it is :)

I have literally spent all week contemplating what prize to have as my giveaway, so I decided on something that I love and rate and hope you will like too! I decided on OPI nail polish and I thought a mini set would be a great. As everyone has different preferences for colour I thought I would give you the choice between 4 different sets :

The Amazing Spiderman collection:

Holland Collection Dutch Treats:

Vintage Minnie Minis:

New York City Ballet:

This giveaway is open for a whole month, and for some of the entries you can come back and do them every day to earn more entries! So, all you have to do to enter is fill out the following Rafflecopter. Please also read the Giveaway Rules below.

Love Carissa XXX

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Giveaway Rules:
1. This giveaway is international.

2. You must be over the age of 18, if you are younger please ask your parents permission to enter.
3. There will only be 1 winners for this giveaway.
4. The winner will be picked at random through Rafflecopter and notified by email on or around the 19th September 2012. This is when I shall ask which set you would prefer.
5. Giveaway starts 21st August 1st and ends 18th September at 8pm GMT.

6. Prizes cannot be shipped to PO Boxes.

7. The winner has 48 hours to respond before a new winner is selected.

8. I do not share or sell information and will use any information only for the purpose of contacting the winner.
9. I am not responsible for any custom charges in your country, nor am I responsible for the package once it has been sent.

NOTD - MisCellaneous

14 Aug 2012

It has been a while since I did a NOTD blog post, but I painted my nails last night and really liked the colour, so thought I would share! I just picked a random colour out of the drawer, which happened to be Missguided - MisCellaneous, and painted away. MisCellaneous is a lovely beigy pink colour and is perfect for a nude nail with a difference!

Missguided - MissCellaneous // £5.00

I always like how Missguided nail polishes apply, smoothly and evenly. I only had to apply 2 coats (although I could have got away with 1!) to achieve a perfectly opaque colour that usually lasts quite a few days.

Whats your favourite nude nail?

Love Carissa XXX

PS. This is my 99th post - that means, the next post shall be a giveaway! I am still deciding on the prize so it may be a few days, but I shall get it up asap and it shall be worth the wait. So keep your eyes peeled :)

Tangled hair no more

12 Aug 2012

I don't know about you but everytime I wash my hair it is a big knotted mess. I spend what seems a life time brushing out the tangles, whilst ripping out small bits of hair. After searching for detangling products and trying out many that to be quite frank, did nothing, I have now found what I find is the perfect combination of products to helps ease this process as much as possible.

Aussie Miracle Hair Insurance Leave in Conditioner - £4.49

First off I find that a leave in conditioner really helps. The Aussie Miracle Hair Insurance is one of my favourite - it smells delicious! I do not use this everytime, however if my hair feels particulary knotty after washing, I will give it a little spritz and this helps to soften the hair allowing the brush to slide through easier.

L'Oreal Kids Mauro's sweet pear tangle tamer - £2.19

Secondly, I always use a hair detangler. Yes I know these are meant for children, but they do exactly what they are meant to do and that is it helps to tame those tangles. It says you can use this on wet or dry hair, however I have only used this on wet hair. As this product is aimed at children it does not have the most pleasant smell (very sweet pear), but is does not linger and it does the job. This is the only hair detangler I have been able to find so far, so if you know of any others please let me know!

Denman Tangle Tamer - £6.20

Lastly, and I believe most importantly is the tangle tamer. Even if you do not use a leave in conditioner or a hair detangler, this is the product that will help get rid of those tangles the most. When brushing your hair, start at the bottom and work your way up towards your root as this will help to get rid of those tangles quicker and ease the pain.

What are your tips at detangling hair?

Lots of Love

Carissa XXX

Paris -Some of the best bits

8 Aug 2012

This post is long over due, but hey better late than never! So in May my boyfriend and I went to Paris for 4 days. We flew over really early on the Monday and back late on the Thursday, which left us shattered when we got home! This was the first time my boyfriend had visited Paris, and I had been 2 or 3 times before but I was only young and could only remember so much. I have always loved Paris though, so I was looking forward to visiting with my boyfriend.

The view from our hotel

We found that 4 days was enough to do most of what we wanted to do, but saying that I could spend weeks there! Paris is small enough that you can get by walking from one attraction to another, however after a few days of this we did tend to opt for the metro to save our tired legs. We did the usual tourist attractions, along with exploring some not so well areas - I thought I would share with you my top 8 things that we did in Paris (in no particular order).

♥ We did 2 free walking tours (Paris Landmarks and Left Bank) with Discover Walks which I would highly recommend. Both guide were extremely friendly and provided us with so much information that we would never have found out just walking around by ourselves.

♥ At midnight we went to the Eiffel Tower to watch it sparkle! I wasn't expecting it to be anything special but I ended up really enjoying the view - it was so pretty. This happens every hour on the hour in the evening.

♥ We explored Montmartre which is very different to the center of Paris. It has lovely little windy roads with lots of artists and windmills dotted about.

This is not the restaurant, I forgot to take a photo!

♥ After reading up on places to visit in Trip Advisor, we took a visit to Little Breizh which does the most amazing Crepes in Paris! As soon as we arrived me knew it was going it be good as it was full of Parisians. Very good value for money too :)

♥ Sainte-Chapelle is home to some of the worlds most amazing stained glass windows. They really are beautiful.

♥ Whilst walking up the hill to the Sacre Cour there is a chocolate shop on the left which is filled with the most amazing chocolate sculptures I have ever seen! It is also filled with lots of delicious looking sweets, I just wish we had purchased something there!

♥ We visited Disneyland for the day which was a lot of fun. My boyfriend wasn't quite as excited as I was, but he ended up loving it. We both agreed that Space Mountain and the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster we our favourite rides.

♥ Lastly, I couldn't go to Paris without visiting a French Pharmacy. We went to the one recommended by Pixiwoo and I definitly did not expect it to be quite so mad! It is definitely worth it though as it is so much cheaper than other Pharmacies, where Bioderma can be up to 4 euros more for just 100ml!

Paris is definitely a place you need to visit, it is such a beautiful city. There is definitely alot more I would like to see and do so I am sure we will be back sometime in the near future. Having said that, there are 2 things I do not like about Paris. 1 - it is so expensive! Both accommodation and food will take up the majority of your holiday cost, so do bare this in mind. 2 - there were a lot of pick pockets and beggers about. Now I know this is a problem in many cities, however there did seem to be an abundance of them in Paris and some try to distract you into signing a petition whilst they pick pocket, so do be careful! But do not let this put you off, as long as you use your common sense you will be fine - I never felt unsafe walking about.

What do you love most about Paris?

Love Carissa XXX

My Attempt to Tone Up

29 Jul 2012

If you have been following me on Twitter you will know that I have recently started the 30 Day Shred. I go on holiday in just over 4 weeks and I am hoping to tone up and have heard this is a great way to do it. I purchased the DVD from amazon.co.uk for just £4.99 and the weights from Argos.co.uk for £14.99. When I first got the DVD I was unsure what size weights I would need and couldn't really find an answer online, so I thought buying a mixture means I can increase throughout the 30 days. I also use a pillow on the floor, otherwise it can be quite uncomfortable!

If you haven't heard of the 30 Day Shred before, Jillian Michaels from The Biggest Loser takes you through 3 20 minute levels which are designed to burn calories and build muscle. Throughout the 20 minutes there is a 3 2 1 minute interval system, thats 3 minutes of strength, 2 minutes of cardio and 1 minutes of abs. I have decided to advance to the next level every 10 days of workout and as I am currently only on day 7 I can only comment on level 1, which is tough to say the least. Coming from someone who has not worked out in a while, it is not impossible. You do have to push yourself but I found Jillian to motivate you well and I have yet to give up. A small word of warning, you do work up a huge sweat in this workout!!

I can already feel a difference in my stamina and I find myself looking forward to doing the workout each day. At the start of the 30 days I weighed myself and measured my waist, thighs, arms and calves in order to see how many inches I have lost (hopefully!). I find this motivates me hugely as I look forward to measuring myself to find out if any cm's have been shredded yet!

I shall do an update at the end of the 30 days with the results :) and more comments on levels and 3.

Have you done the 30 Day Shred? What do you do to tone up?

Love Carissa XXX

Ways to Contact Me

28 Jul 2012

If you guys would like to learn some more about me then there are numerous ways you can contact me :)

E-mail: vanillacrush@gmail.com

Instagram: carissa10

Twitter: @Vanillacrush1

If you have Twitter or Instagram then leave your details here as I would love to follow you and learn more about my readers!

Have a lovely weekend,

Carissa XXX

My Photo Ready Face

23 Jul 2012

Firstly, summer has arrived (in the UK that is)!! Isn't it gorgeous today? I decided to blog from outside for once and its so nice to be sitting in the sun writing about what I enjoy the most. This is my current view and there is barely a cloud in the sky.

Recently I was a bridesmaid for my brothers wedding which meant there would be many a photo taken. As I am sure many of you are aware of, if you wear SPF on your face and have your photo taken it is quite likely you will appear ghostly white. The reason for this is that the SPF reflects the flash making you appear very pale.

After looking around, it appears that not many high end brands sell foundation without SPF, after all you should be wearing SPF on your face everyday. However for those special occasions it is necessary to go with out. I decided to try out some drug store brands and I found a great match. Rimmels Lasting Finish 25 hour foundation (£6.99) in True Nude not only lasts ALL day but it does not contain SPF. I decided to choose a colour slightly darker than my natural skin colour as my skin does tan during the summer, however as you can see from the swatches this colour blends like a dream. It seems that whether I have a tan or not, this colour blends in with my skin - always a bonus! I decided to mix this foundation with MAC's strobe liquid lotion as it is quite heavy for the summer, producing a lovely dewy finish.

As you can see in the photos, there are no ghastly white faces and I can confirm it lasted the whole day for around 14 hours. I know it does say it would last 25 hours, but in all honesty who wears their foundation for that long?! After many tears it was also still in place so I have to say Rimmel, I am very impressed!

What are your tips for a photo ready face?

Hope you are all enjoying the sun,

Love Carissa XXX

Sharing the Love #2

18 Jul 2012

My previous post proved popular, so here it is again - 3 blogs that I have been loving at the moment.

Outside Beauty, Inside Health

Firstly, I have to mention how Cat has been nominated for this years Cosmopolitan and Next’s Best Newcomer Blog Award! This is such an amazing achievement in itself, so if you would like to vote for Cat then vote HERE. I have been a follower of Cat for quite a long time now and find her such an inspiration (check out her Friday Fitness posts), she is such a beautiful girl, both inside and out and honestly seems like one of the nicest girls <3 I am also very envious of her flawless skin!

Couture Girl

It is quite likely you have heard of this blog before, after all it has gained followers at the speed of light! I absolutely love reading each and every blog post she produces, generally providing a good honest review. She is also such a beautiful girl, you can't help but stare at the photos posted! She recently moved to Australia which I am extremley jealous of, but I love that she has kept us up to date with her new life there <3 You won't regret checking her blog out!

Hello October

Suzie posts some amazing pictures, of both beauty products and herself, that I find myself staring at - she has a great eye for photos. I remember when I first found her blog, I spent a few hours reading through her blog and looking at all the photos. I always look forward to her next blog post, each and every one being interesting and informative!

I hope this post has introduced some of you to some great new blogs, let me know if it has!

Love Carissa XXX

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