October Favourites

I've had a little break the past few days, the Halloween festivities took over a little bit. October was a great month for the aul blog, I managed to write more frequently then most months and I hope that I'll keep it up in November too. October saw a massive increase in followers (hello there friends!) lots of sexy posts and doing mad amounts of Halloween make up friends and family. I was finally introduced to Walking Dead and Octobers issue of the Buffy comic was particularly brilliant. Pumpkin carving was upped a level and there was lots of time spent in Lush bubble baths. Over all, October was good to me.

Your going to notice a lot of conkers in the photos, but there not just for decoration! These are one of my monthly favourites because I've decked out the house with loads of little bowls of them. Not once have I seen a spider around since. The old wives tale about conkers warding off spiders seems to be true. Magic stuff. And if all the spiders suddenly appear back, I have ammo to fire at them! Its really a win, win situation. And also, appoligies for the dark, slightly out of focus photos, the light was fading fast and I really wanted to get this post up today!

As with every month, I've been picking up the odd bargain around the place. One of those was a dupe for the Bonrjois nail varnish remover pot. This Dealz €1.49 twist&out one has a fruit fragrance and works just as well as the €7 one. Totally blown away as I thought when it comes to nail varnish remover more expensive means better quality, but thats not the case here. Love it!

Next is a wonderful little offering from Lush, Grease Lightening spot treatment. You can put this on at any time of day and as often as you like. I slather a load of this clear gel on just before bed and in the morning my spots have done one of two things. The smaller ones have gone down considerably and the bigger ones have come to a head. This really seems to push out the impurities in the skin and its great if you have a covering of just a few small spots to send them packing. For the slightly bigger ones it will take a few days for them to be banished from your skin, but its a less harsh product to use then some of the spot treatments out there. I wouldn't recommend using this if you were going to put make up on over it, as it flakes slightly if you put on anything but the tiniest bit. 

I've blogged about the Hero Brush in October but I've honestly not used another foundation brush the entire month. This is a bit of a hassle for me as I'm forever applying make up and then running off to wash it and let it dry for the next day. Just goes to show how much I love it considering I'm normally awfully lazy about washing my brushes and only clean them after every single one has been used. You can read the full review over here. 

Never before have I made up so many faces as I have this Halloween. Friends and family all wanted some form of hallowed out, pasty and dead looking appearances so my gorgeous Sleek contour and highlighter palette got some serious loving and use. I'd forgotten just how great this is and know I'll be using it lots more again. Its under €10 and comes in several shades to choose from. It also has a handy big mirror and the packaging is really sturdy. I did a review of it way back, over here. 

Over the past few weeks I have been all about the bolder shades of lip stick. I have more reds in my collection then is healthy, so I'm starting to look to burgundy reds and even plums and purples. In comes the most gorgeous purple from Christian Breton. I was lucky enough to be given this from The Cosmetic Outlet to try out and my god, its just perfect. Available online for €17 from the Christian Breton site, I was shocked that The Cosmetic Outlet was selling it for the bargain €10. I'm going back in to pick up another as part of a Christmas present for a friend. Its moisturising, highly pigmented and lasts ages. Its all I've been wearing on my lips in October and without a doubt I'll be using it all Winter.

Lastly I'm a sucker for trying to find the perfect dry shampoo and Tesco has the new Herbal Essence range on offer, so I picked up most of them. By far I'm really liking the orange uplifting volume one. Theres no white powder like Batiste and it leaves a lovely smell in your hair. I wouldn't say its the most amazing dry shampoo if your hair is really greasy, but if your day 2 of not washing your hair, then its perfect. You can also get them all in Boots if you fancy picking up a few Boots points along the way.

Ciara Daly: My Hero Brush

I went to the Pro Beauty show a little while ago for a goo at what everyone had to offer and to see if there were any good deals going! For the most part, there were loads of gimmicky stands, the odd 'psychic' and plain awful makeup (we all know who I'm on about, their causing quite the negative storm in the blogger world at the moment!) But when I passed by the Ciara Daly makeup stand, I had to take a second look. 

I'd like to point out now that my idea of make up brushes is the odd 'free with product' or cheap one in Boots that I pick up. Over the past year or so I've gotten really into my brushes, picking up Sigma, Blank Cosmetics and Real Techniques to name a few. And although these are pricey brand, I've never on the spot forked out over €20 for a brush that I've never read reviews of. But after talking to one of the really lovely girls for ages about the brushes, our mammies and Belfast, I decided to throw caution to the wind. Why the hell not? So for €25 I got myself a 'my hero brush'. And to be perfectly honest, I'm kicking myself I didn't pick up a few more for Christmas presents and well, for myself too!

Ciara Daly is a make up artist based in Belfast who has an endless amount of courses to choose from and getting make up done for occasions. Not only that, but there is a full range of gorgeous brushes that can be bought, the newest (and best) edition to the family being the My Hero Brush. When I was told about this kabuki foundation brush, I wasn't fully sold on how amazing it was meant to make my foundation apply. But I was so wrong to ever doubt for one second how amazing this is. 

I found with my various foundation brushes I was forever getting streaks of the bristles, it wasn't applying evenly and I was left with patchy bits all over. Not only that but if I tried to apply a few layers, I was left with a miss matched skin tone from some being wiped off. I am almost certain it must be just me as I have used loads of different brushes. I turned to Penneys sponges that helped to apply my make up much better but got dirty so quickly and I always think sponges are far less hygienic then brushes, I'm not sure why! - I'm forever washing everything I use.

My Hero Brush is odd, I'm not sure how it manages it, but I get total even coverage with no brush marks. Theres not been any fall out yet after 3 washes and about 2 weeks use and if I try to apply several layers its like magic. As I hate faffing about taking ages to apply my foundation, this has been a life saver. I slap on a bit of foundation, brush it over my skin in circular movements and bam! I'm done in under a minute, depending on how many layers I'm weighing my face down with on the day. The lazy persons dream brush. I'm honestly a little baffled at how good this brush is as I really thought it wouldn't be able to do everything I wanted a brush to do. But oh mammy, it really does.

And if thats not enough for you, then just look at the cute eye catching packaging, it screams girly and fun. The brush itself is classy and if I do say so myself - a little fancy! (depriving myself of higher end brushes always make me feel like singing Fancy when I use them)  Its neat enough to throw in my makeup bag and it fluffs right back out when I take it out and spread out the bristles. Its also pretty enough to want to display and drag everyone in to have a look. Honest to god, you'd think I had no life, but just look! Theres a great leaflet in the box that tells you how to use and care for the brush too, which I found handy as a starting point.

At £25 (€30) -includes p&p from the Ciara Daly site over here you can have one of these gorgeous brushes. I wouldn't normally recommend such a mad price for a brush, but I don't think you could go back to anything else after giving this one a try. If your up in Belfast or thereabouts, you will be able to buy one straight from your local pharmacy, you lucky ducks! I'll be keeping an eye out for a stand next time I'm up visiting my sister.

Do you think you would try one of these?