Carcassone, France♥ | Best Bits

Hello lovelies! I have recently landed back in England after an amazing 11 days away with my best friend Jenny and her family, we stayed in a village called Escales located in Carcassone which is in the south of France, it was so beautiful. They very kindly took me on holiday and I loved it so much I thought I would share some of my favourite photos from the holiday with you all. This isn't a very chatty post but I hope you enjoy the photos regardless. There isn't too many photos because most days I didn't have my phone with me! 

Kiera 

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Get Ready With Me - Summer Night Out

Hey beauts. 

When it comes to parties my all time favourite part of the whole thing is the prep! From the tanning, painting my nails to perfecting my eyeliner. I enjoy it so much and spend hours doing so. I'm doing a separate post on my fake tan routine, stay tuned for that. Today I'm talking all things make-up and then showing you my outfit, after I've spent hours complaining about having no clothes. When we all know I own enough clothes. 

MAKEUP:

As summer fast approaches I've been switching up my make-up routine, to do this, I've ditched the super high coverage foundation and decided to go for something with a medium coverage, and a little more light weight. My foundation of choice is the Maybelline Fit Me, Matte Poreless, this is such a gorgeous foundation that gives such a natural finish. It's not 100% matte which I like because it's got a little dueyness to it. As I said this isn't the most high coverage foundation, so I add a little extra coverage where needed with my collection lasting perfection concealer in shade 1, I also use this to highlight under my eyes and down my nose. I mean it's summer so there's no way I can skip powder, unless I wanna look like a disco ball. To powder I just use my rimmel stay matte, nothing special but it has been my go to in years.

To fill in the brows lately I've been leaning towards my Benefit Goof Proof pencil. It's quick and easy to use, it also makes my brows look natural too. I use shade 2 and it is perfect for me. To maintain my brows I set them with the Benefit Gimme Brow - this clings to any hair that the pencil did, whilst also making sure they don't turn into wild beasts half way through the day. 

I absolutely adore doing my eye makeup. its my favourite thing to do at the moment.  My go to palette has been 'Easy on the Eye' Birthday Suit by Seventeen. 

Now for contour, I am super boring and this is something I never switch up. To bronze up my face I use the hoola bronzer, of course. I think every blogger has loved this at one point.
To add a bit colour I sweep MAC skin-finish in Lightyear over my cheeks. This is so pretty and gives your skin a gorgeous glow. This will come as no surprise to you as I use the MAC soft and gentle highlighter to highlight. Who remembers when this was every bloggerd absolute favourite highlighter? I'm still in that phase right now. 

I personally think lipstick is the real make or break as to whether or not your makeup is going to look good. I am so fussy when it comes to lipstick shades. I always opt for MAC lipsticks as I find them to wear the best and the colours that are available are insane! For this look I was wearing whirl. But of course I had to show you the other two options. 

FINISHED LOOK : 

Now for the extra fun part, clothing. At the moment I am an absolute sucker for culotte style shorts from Boohoo. I wear them during the day, on nights out. Literally whenever. I know own three pairs all in different colours. 
I have become obsessed with buying oversized basic tees and then tying them into a knot at the bottom so they become tighter and a little cropped. Ii personally love PLT basic tees as they are so comfy and cheap, not forgetting the amazing colour range.
My absolute wardrobe staple is currently my oversized, ripped denim jacket from PRIMARK! It's amazing quality and was only £20. I still can't believe it was from Primark. I literally wearing this with ANYTHING.

Kiera 

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Kylie Liquid Lipstick Review - Are They Worth It?

Hey lovelies! 

When Kylie first started teasing us all about her new matte lip collection, I like most others couldn't wait to snag one up for myself. I've always adored Kylie's makeup and it's no secret that her lips always look insane. For Christmas I was kindly gifted one of her gift sets of six mini liquid lipsticks - ecstatic doesn't even make the cut for how I was feeling. These sets are no longer available, however a Kylie Lip kit retails at $29 - quite pricey if you ask me.

The packaging is beautiful, and they are so aesthetic. Despite the annoying flash back they give, making it hard to take cute insta's of them. First world problems right?. They come delivered in tissue paper and a note from Kylie, which is such a sweet touch. However, the actual packaging of the lipsticks damages so easily. I kept mine in the box for the first two months of having mine as I loved it so much, I only recently put them into a lipstick stand. Obviously I've thrown them into my rucksack on the odd day that I wear it. But surely they shouldn't look like I've let my cat use it as a cat scratcher from that? 

The colour ranges are stunning and I think Kylie has done an amazing job with launching her own makeup line, her eyeshadows look gorgeous. I'm by no means hating on Kylie in this post, however not everything works for everyone. These may look stunning on your lips,and if I do I'm jealous! I keep trying to give them another chance, however so far I haven't found a way to wear them that is comfortable and makes them last. Any tips would be great!

The formula is matte, like most liquid lipsticks. Now I don't know about you but matte screams long lasting to me? These don't budge once on your lips. That's if you're not eating or drinking that day - yeah right, pass me the fries. I find that even taking a sip of water causes the lipstick to budge or flake off, which isn't a pretty look in my eyes. If you do only wear these for a couple hours, then they are likely to last. However, when I reach for a liquid lipstick it means I'm busy that day and need my makeup to last.I don't have time to keep re-applying. These are a killer to remove and require a lot of scrubbing. I use a cleanser to remove my makeup and still have trouble then! My arm is currently red raw from were I had to scrub off the swatches. These are super drying on the lips and feel heavy too. I personally find this quite irritating and means I don't wear them for more than a couple of hours. I always apply lip palm before using these as I do expect them to be a little drying, but not so much that I can't bear it. The photo below shows what the lipstick looked like after I applied it to my lips and had a drink. It looks awful and this isn't just me having poor application skills.

SHADE EXPOSURE:

I personally feel like I bought more into the brand than the product itself. I think I got over excited about Kylie having a make-up range and I just assumed I would love them. Which I don't. I don't like to be negative on my blog, but these sadly aren't the product for me. I wish they was!

Let me know if Kylie's liquid lipsticks work for you, and if so what's your favourite shade? Mine is Kristen! I think it's gorgeous. I want to try and play around with these because I don't want them to go to waste, maybe adding a little oil into my lips before application will prevent it from being so drying?

Kiera 

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My Skin Journey!♥

Hey lovelies! 

If you follow me over on my twitter than you have probably seen me tweet endlessly about having horrific skin, something that would knock my confidence massively. I started getting spots around the age of 13, so for almost four years I have suffered with acne. I would never leave the house without a full face of makeup in fear of what others would say. I hated staying away from home because it meant people would see how bad my skin was underneath all the makeup. Around Christmas, it really started to get to me and I had had enough. I had tried all the skincare brands, I've tried sudocream, toothpaste, drinking water, healthy food, exercise. You name it, I've tried it.

I finally went to the doctors about it, and they noticed it had started to scar so they prescribed me with antibiotic cream and pills. I started taking this every evening from the day I got them.  The pill has nothing to do with your period, it doesn't stop your period or affect your menstrual cycle at all so don't worry if you're young like me and worry yoiur parents might think you want it for something else. You have to be prescribed this medicine by the doctors, you can't walk into a shop and buy it. It's worth paying a visit to your doctor because they can give you other advice on your skin whilst you're there too. I was given lymecycline Pills and Duac Gel, these are a type of antibiotic. I haven't experienced any side effects with these.

Here are some before photos, I took these on the evening that I started my skin medication. As you can see, my skin was so red, I had a lot of scars and quite a few big spots. And my skin was at it's clearest at this point! I mainly suffered with acne around my chin, cheeks and jawline. The second photo shows just how bad it could be. I was so self conscious about my skin and all I longed for was makeup free days filled with confidence. I didn't enjoy wearing makeup anymore either because it would look bumpy and I had to use so much foundation to hide my imperfections. When I started my medication I decided to stop wearing makeup to school to help clear up my skin. I quickly noticed that people didn't care if I wore makeup or not, and not wearing makeup also made people notice my skin clearing up even more. 

DAY ONE:

 I expected to have to wait months to see a real change in my skin, but it only took four days before my skin was clearing up already! The scarring was already going down and I had no new spots since starting my medication. Obviously it wasn't a massive difference but for somebody who had hated their skin for so long it definitely felt like a huge difference.

OVER TWO WEEKS:

I went through a stage where my skin got so bad again, and I almost gave up on the medication because I assumed it wasn't working. However, I am currently sitting my GCSEs so stress levels are high, so stress spots are expected. With this medication it doesn't stop your skin from ever breaking out, obviously you still break out. But I have noticed that my skin hardly ever breaks out anymore. 

I have become so much more confident in my skin, and will happily leave home with no makeup on. I no longer sit and cry about having horrible skin, it used to be so disheartening when I would look after my skin so much yet it would still break out like there was no tomorrow.

Last night I was doing my skincare routine and I noticed how much clearer my skin looks, I took some photos and compared them to the ones I took just over a month ago, I'm so happy with how it looks! 

NOW:

The top row was taken last night, and the bottom row a month ago.

Obviously I don't have the worst skin in the world, but it definitely used to knock my confidence and was something that I was so self conscious off. Not every method works for everyone, I know for some people the pill and cream won't make any difference but there is always something out there that will work for you. It's a case of trial and error, you have to try lots of different things until you find one that works for you.

If you've found a certain product that helped clear up your skin then leave it down below! 

Kiera 

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♥