it's that most wonderful time of the year ♥

I'm a big child at christmas. I'm one of those people that annoys everyone with their christmas spirit, and sits and watching the santa clause in plaid pjamas with a cup of hot chocolate.I love being festive and decorating everything to make it christmasy and fun! I'm lucky in that I have 3 brothers who still believe that santa is walking across the roof on christmas eve with his elves and reindeers delievering their prezzies.

I always decorate my room by putting a tree up and getting my christmas yankee candles (I'm currently in the process of doing this as I blog) but I thought I'd show you some of the cute decorations mum has put up around the house. 18 days till christmas, yay! My mum likes to decorate with all little handmade things that we've made or brought home over the years which makes me love it even more.

Does anyone else have any weird little decorations at Christmas time?

Stay safe everyone!♥

Much Love, Orla

x

FOTD- lazy sunday and festive spirt ♥

I'm a bit old fashioned in that I like to spend my sundays doing nothing, relaxing and spending time with family. That is of course if i'm off work and this weekend I was, which is why I am writing this blog now, two hours before my week of four nightshifts in a row start. The weekend off means I spend the week working, but hey ho! I spent the weekend getting festive, putting up the christmas tree with my mum and doing a little bit of christmas shopping. I'm going to put a tree up in my room this year, which I'll probably do a post on at the end of the week.

Anyways, here are a few pictures I took of our decorations which I'm super proud of. My mum loves putting little handmade decorations up to make them look personal, and I love seeing wee santas everywhere. I went to my boyfriends also and we went out for a meal, and here is the make-up I wore! Very casual and relaxed was what I was going for :)

Face -

♥ Estee Lauder Illuminating Base(Mixed in with Foundation)

♥ Bobbi Brown Moisture Rich Foundation in Porcelian

♥MAC Studio Fix Concealer in NW20

♥Sleek Highlight and Contour Kit (Highlighting powder only) in Light

♥ Benefit Sugerbomb Blush

Eyes-

♥ MAC Bare Study Paintpot (Base)

♥ MAC 'Dazzlelight' e/s (Highlight), 'All that Glitters' e/s (Lid) 'Sorcery' e/s (Crease/Contour)

♥ Collection 2000 XXL Volume Mascara

♥ Bobbi Brown Gel Liner - Chocolate Shimmer

♥Bobbi Brown 'Slate' e/s (Eyebrows)

Lips-

♥ Estee Lauder Pure Colour lipstick - Coral Kiss (L/E)

If you'd like to know anything about any of this make-up drop me a comment :)

Hope you're all keeping warm!

Lots of love, Orla♥

introducing my new baby - poppy the puppy! ♥

This is a rather random blog post for me, but I just couldn't resist showing you all the new addition to my family. I've wanted a puppy for soo long, but having little small brothers in the house always proved difficult to manage with any pets. Now my youngest brother is 4, and we decided that there was nothing stopping us getting a little pup. and what a great decision thats already proved to be! We had to drive for around 2 hours to get poppy from a lovely lady who was selling 5 puppies - all girls. Choosing which one to take home was awful, I wanted them all! But i decided to bring home this little girly! My boyfriend decided 'Poppy' was a cute name for her :)

Poppy is a cross between a 'Pomerianan and a Lhasa Apso and she is 11 weeks old. She's an adorable little ball of fluff! We've had her for a week now and I love her to bits, shes such a good little pup. She's getting spoiled rightly, and so should anything that's that cute.

If you'd like to know anything else about little Poppy do ask :)

Lots of love, Orla and Poppy!

♥

i am a glamour girl ♥

I've been reading 'Glamour' magazine for quite a long time now and apart from 'More', its probably the only magazine that I'd buy every issue of. Its a chunky magazine, with plenty of fashion and interesting stories, as well as amazing beauty product features. However as much as I love the actual magazine, one thing I adore about the magazine is the free gifts that they occassionly give away. Last year they kindly gave us a selection of benefit products, such as the 'Eye Bright' pencil or the 'Bad Gal' eyeliner which I believe are usually around £15 each, and a few months ago they also featured luxury samples of the amazing 'Benetint, Posietint and High Beam', three veryyyy popular products in the beauty world which I think retail at around £20 each.

For the December issue of Glamour, they have teamed up with the fabulous 'Nails Inc.' to bring us four free gifts, which usually cost £11 each. The magazine is only £2, so I decided to pick up all four.  Not only are they full sized products, but they are of outstanding quality and the colours they have chosen are truely wearable. Here are the beauties in all their glory. (apologies for the grubby finger marks on the bottles! eugh)

(L-R: Piccadilly Circus, Tate, Victoria, Basil Street)

I am in love with all of these colours! 'Victoria' is the only one I'm yet to try, but it's my favourite shade, sort of a reddish black. I'm wearing 'Tate' at the minute which is also beautiful, here's a picture of it on. Excuse the state of my poor damaged nails due to the overuse of falsies!

Such a pretty shade of red! I bought all of these polishes for £8, which is a whopppping £36 saving if i were to buy these beauties from Nails Inc! Thanks Glamour, awfully kind of you :) Anyone else majorly impressed with these gifts, or have any colours they can recommend from Nails Inc?

If your not lucky enough to have 'Glamour' where you are, you can also buy the lovely colours here:

http://www.nailsinc.com/

Lots of Love, Orla

♥

review: the body shop strawberry body butter ♥

Now, before I begin this review I will tell each of you one fact about me which is 'I am a sucker for anything that smells sickeningly sweet'. It's true. I hate sweets and candy and milkshakes, but anything that smells like them will have me won over instanstly. Having already tried the coconut body butter from The Body Shop (which I personally loved as it was brilliant for dry skin), I decided to pick up the strawberry one, which I had never smelt before, and boy oh boy, it's right up my street.

Here's what The Body Shop say about this product:

'This product provides 24 hour hydration, leaves skin feeling silky and smooth, has a buttery texture along with a sweet strawberry scent. Quickly absorbed and provides round the clock hydration'

So getting out of a lovely bath, I tested the product out to see just how good it really is. And I can honestly say it's beautiful, and certainly didn't disapoint. It's moistursing, it smells AMAZING and dried in fairly quickly without any stickiness, which is something I find a lot with body butters. If your not a fan of sweet smells, this won't be for you - My mum for example, hated it and prefers the coconut butter. This product is suggested for normal skin, and therefore it may not moisturise dry skin as well as some of the other butters by The Body Shop, but it does feel beautiful on the skin!



At £12.50 for 200ml of delicious product, I would expect this to be more expensive, and I would definitley reccommend it to anyone who loves sweet scents like me.

Here's where you can get this bad boy - www.thebodyshop.co.uk

If anyone can recommend any other lovely butters do leave me a comment :)

Much love, Orla

♥

collection - my lipsticks ♥

I'm definitley a lipstick girl :) I usually wear nude colours but during autumn and winter I come out of my rutt and warm to purples, reds and deep colours. My skin is usually porecelain white, so now and again I enjoy being a bit playful with my dark colours! I collect lippies, and here's where I am so far, give and take a few. I've lost my Viva Glam Gaga lipstick and Ravishing (sniff sniff) but you get the general gist i'm sure! Here goes -

(Left- Right) 'Lovelorn', 'Plink!', 'Peachstock', 'Captive', 'Chatterbox' (I ordered this baby online, and it arrived broken.I wasn't a happy princess that's for sure!)

 'Rose Maiden L/E', 'All Styled Up L/E' (identical to my Viva Glam Gaga!), 'Fabby', 'Girl About Town' (This is much brighter than it looks ;) , 'Creme de Nude'

'Snob', 'Win-Win' (This is a dazzle lipstick, which are no longer sold), 'Overtime', 'Faithfully Yours', 'Unlimited' (Pro lipcreme lipsticks - My favoutite lipsticks from Mac!)

'Hue', Bobbi Brown Lip Colour - 'Sandwash Pink' (Kate Middleton's Wedding Day Lippy!), Bobbi Brown Creamy Lip Colour - 'Blue Raspberry', Soft Blush L/E, BB Treatment Lip Shine - Rosy'

Estée Lauder Pure Colour Gloss Stick - 'Pink Sorbet', Estée Lauder Pure Colour Lipstick - Coral Kiss (The perfect coral for me!), YSL Rouge Volupte - '2. Sensual Silk'

Maybelline Colour Sensational Lipsticks - '812 Delicate Pearl', '338 Midnight Plum'. '530 Fatal Red'

Natural Collection Lipsticks- 'Rose Petal', 'Crimson', Rimmel Shine Temptation Lipstick- '169 Starry Eyed'

Barry M Lip Paints - '101, 147, 129' (My lippaints always seem to break easily, does anyone else have the same problem?), GOSH Lipstick- '108 Cute', Collection 2000 Extreme colour lipstick- 7 'Mudslide'

Elizabeth Arden Exceptional Colour Lipsticks - 'Red Door Red', 'Cherry', 'Smooth Mauve'

Prices R.R.P-

MAC Lipsticks - £13.50

MAC Pro Longwear Colours- £15.50

Bobbi Brown Lip Colours- £18.00

Bobbi Brown Creamy Lip Colours-£18.00

Bobbi Brown Treatment Lipshines-£18.00

Estee Lauder Pure Colour Gloss Sticks- £18.50

Estee Lauder Pure Colour Lipstick- £19.00

YSL Rouge Volupte- £22

Maybelline Colour Sensational Lipsticks- £7.19 @ Superdrug

Natural Collection Lipsticks- £1.99

Barry M Lippaints - £4.49

Elizabeth Ardens Exceptional Colours- Around £15 (I got mine in a set last year for my birthday)

And there you have it! Bare in mind that I did get a relatively good discount on high end products when I was working as a Make-up Artist, but I love collecting lipsticks of all types. My favourite lipstick of all time is probably 'Creme De Nude', but I do love all of my colours! Any reccommendations of lipsticks I should try or opinions on my colours? Do let me know :)

All my love, Orla.

♥

bonjour!

I believe every new blog deserves a little introduction. So here it is, hiya! I'm Orla, an almost 19 year old from Northern Ireland, and I am postively obsessed with anything beauty or fashion related. I've wanted to do this for quite a while, but it was never good timing espiecially with A-levels and all that malark! But i think now is the perfect time to introduce my wee blog to the beauty community. I worked as a make-up artist over the summer with a company, but it wasn't really for me. Beauty is my favourite hobby, I love collecting it, looking at it, playing with it, but a career in it was a differernt story. I now work in a care home from disabled people, and it's my dream job. I am going to be studying nursing next year, hopefully in Edinburgh! I'm sure you'll find out a bit more about me as the blogging goes on, I'm so excited about getting involved.

All my love, Orla.

♥