cruelty free

Halloween Makeup To Get Creative With

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Rather than put together a specific look, I decided to find, what I thought were the most versatile items. This way after Halloween you can subtly incorporate them into an evening look, using as much or as little as you want. Creative and budget friendly!

 

Glow Up – Orly

Cosmic Cowboy Face Jewels – Barry M

Glitter Flip Liquid Lipstick in Iconic – Ciate

18 Hit Wonders Eyeshadow Palette – E.L.F.

I’ve left off any prices and links as it depends on which country you live in or what your fave beauty halls or websites are. My fave UK places (apart from the brands own websites) are Superdrug, TK Maxx (online), Debenhams and Cult Beauty (online).

Happy creating! V- -V

Glow Oil Lip + Cheek by Milk Makeup

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I’ve been on a never ending quest to find a blusher that doesn’t look too powdery/flat or too sparkly, just something that gives a sheer pinky glow. Glow Oil Lip + Cheek by Milk Makeup £12 is my latest and last attempt.

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It’s rather small for the price but it is portable and I think that’s the idea. I was very disappointed to find it comes unnecessarily packaged in a plastic box, rather than cardboard.

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I picked ‘glimmer’ as it looked the right shade for my skin tone online and it does give a sexy flush of realistic colour. However, there’s subtle shimmer or ‘glimmer’ and then there’s full on sparkle with glitter…

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As I’m not a small child going to a party, I will not be wearing this glittery nonsense on my cheeks. How a brand can even pretend that this gives a sheer, natural glow, I do not know! It does look pretty fantastic on lips though, especially when mixed with lip balm or another lip oil. It’s non sticky, unlike a lot of glosses and it’s not particularly drying either. It also looks good arched over green or blue eyes (along with eyeliner and mascara) as the glitter ensures you don’t get mistaken for just having hayfever.

Rating 2/5

I’m going back to applying a moisturising lipstick with my fingers for blush in future.

❤Chrissie❤

 

 

Replacing Our Fave Scents with Cruelty Free One’s – The Result!

/ Vamp It Up Mcr (Chrissie) / 1 Comment

I decided we should use a mixture of Eden Perfumes and Floral Street perfumes to give us a better chance of finding our replacements. Here’s a reminder of what we want to find dupes for.

The bloke

Oud by The Body Shop (as they no longer stock it)

1 Million by Paco Rabanne.

Me

Heat by Beyonce

Deep Red by Hugo Boss (I already have a fairly good one from Floral Street)

Opium by YSL

Burberry Woman (the bloke noticed this on someone and asked what it was)

Final Result

Treasure by Eden Perfumes mixed with Wonderland Peony by Floral street replicates Beyonce Heat pretty well.

Electric Rhubarb by Floral street – which I was sure would be similar to Heat – was fun but had no depth to it, no projection at all and then faded into oblivion after 15 minutes!

Wonderland Peony by Floral Street is a deep, spicy replacement for Hugo Boss, Deep Red with Treasure by Eden being similar but lighter.

Black Orchid by Floral Street very similar to Opium by YSL but a little lighter.

No luck with the random Burberry one unfortunately.

Million Dollar Man by Eden Perfumes is pretty close to 1 Million.

Oud Wood by Eden Perfumes is the perfect replacement for The Body Shop Oud, we are both thrilled!

Surprise!

I can’t even remember how many perfumes I’ve tried at this point but it’s meant that I’ve found some new unexpected favourites.

Wild Vanilla Orchid by Floral Street smells like freshly baked fruit pie. So comforting and natural. It reminds me a little of the original Angel by Thierry Mugler but no where near as sickly.

Virgin Waters by Eden Perfumes smells how a Piña colada cocktail tastes. I have to resist the urge to drown myself in this everyday, the perfume I mean…possibly.

Well, even if I wear perfume every time I leave the house, I don’t think I’ll need to buy any more for decades! Now, I also have lots of handbag/washbag sized  ones.

Which out of all of the above do you want to try?

❤Chrissie❤

 

 

 

Making My Skin As Glowy As When I Was A Kid! Using The Body Shop – Vitamin C Facial Cleansing Polish and Glow Boosting Moisturiser

/ Vamp It Up Mcr (Chrissie) / 5 Comments

 

Hello lovely people!

As the tag line on the products suggests I naturally have ‘dull, tired, grumpy skin’. So I thought I’d simplify my routine and lay off the micellar water/cleanser and expensive Glycolic Acid (exfoliating) and Hyaluronic (moisture attracting) Acid and facial oil combination for a while.

The Body Shop, Vitamin C Facial Cleansing Polish (£11, 125ml)

I love this because it’s gentle enough to use everyday and it’s a cleanser and exfoliator in one. I wish they’d have reduced the amount of SLS as it’s very foamy! It’s not drying or irritating though and the polish leaves skin feeling clean, smooth and fresh.

Rating 4/5

The Body Shop Glow Boosting Moisturiser (£16, 50ml)

This is one of those gel-moisturisers where a little really does go a long way and it sinks in almost immediately. It’s also the perfect base for makeup for people with medium-dry skin. It left my skin feeling hydrated for the entire day and my T-zone remained shine free. It even rescued the look of a too-matte foundation I bought by mistake.

Rating 5/5

After a week…

My skin looks and feels like young, healthy skin. Honestly, I’ve not had skin this good, with this little effort since I was about ten! Rather than absorbing the light because it’s so matte, it’s now radiant, soft, smooth and looks slightly plumper. I’ve had no breakouts around my T-zone and I only have to use facial oil every three days, rather than everyday. This hero duo are perfect for the central heating seasons!

Don’t buy this range if you do not like the overwhelming scent of oranges. I love them!

❤Chrissie❤

Hangover Prevention and Selfcare Bedtime Routine

/ Vamp It Up Mcr (Chrissie) / 5 Comments

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These items are the reason I wake up feeling and looking refreshed, rather than trashed. I’m thinking this will come in handy for people who like to have a drink over the weekend too.

Beauty Kitchen Products – Oil

They are an independent UK company who try to be as sustainable and natural as possible. This oil is wonderful for taking makeup off with, to give the face a quick massage with and to nourish skin. No more waking up looking like a dried up Mummy, with curiously puffy eye bags.

Laptop/Book

Before I go to sleep I watch an episode of 90210, Lucifer or You Tube makeup tutorials by Wayne Goss, with the screen dimmed. If my eyes aren’t too tired I’ll read a character driven novel. Anything that’s interesting but not taxing.

Healthy Crisps

I always find I need salty food to soak up the sugary alcohol I’ve had. It also means I don’t wake up starving but too tired to make breakfast/lunch. I find the crunching really relaxing as i carry a lot of tension in my jaw.

Oil Based Lip Balm

Skin needs both oil and moisturiser so I apply this before it’s needed. I’m such a mouth breather at night XoD

Scrunchy 

How do people sleep without their hair tied back, how!?  When I do that, it wraps around me like a Face-hugger from Alien and then I wake up with it looking like statically charged spaghetti.

HYDRATE! (Waiting for my new flask to arrive)

I always have weak, sugar free cordial (water just goes straight through me) to sip before I go to sleep, throughout the night and before I get up in the morning. This stops me feeling shite, keeps my skin clear and reduces eye bags and ‘desert mouth.’

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Before I started this routine I used to wake up with a really flushed face, crazy hair, bloating, bone-dry skin and feel more tired than when I went to bed! This has made a significant difference to my morning chronic fatigue and mental health; most days I’ll happily get up at 11.00am, rather than dragging my sorry arse out of bed at 1.00-2.00pm like I used to.

❤Chrissie❤

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aldi Vegan No Sausage Rolls

/ Vamp It Up Mcr (Chrissie) / 1 Comment

I’m just going to get straight to it and say these taste fantastic! I was worried they might be a little bland but they have the perfect meaty, lightly spiced flavour you expect from a decent sausage roll.

The cooking instructions threw me a bit (from frozen) as it says to place them directly on to the oven shelf. Im glad I didn’t otherwise they would have glued themselves to it. Instead, I put them on a pre-heated pizza tray with lots of holes in so that they cooked through all crispy but didn’t stick. Ten minutes before the end I turned the oven up from gas mark 6 to 7 because they needed it.

They are so tasty I didn’t want to ruin them with the tomato sauce and ignored it. A nice bit of Branston pickle would have gone down well though.

Rating 5/5

P.S. These are vegan, so dairy free but not gluten free. Yup, I will have a food baby for the next few days – totally worth it for a treat now and then ;0)

<3Chrissie❤

Replacing Our Favourite Scents with Cruelty Free Ones part 1

/ Vamp It Up Mcr (Chrissie) / 1 Comment

On our journey to replace all of our favourite scents, me and the bloke have been trying a lot of samples to the point where we are having to make notes!

The scents the bloke is trying to replace:

Oud by The Body Shop (as they no longer stock it)

1 Million by Paco Rabanne.

Mine are:

Heat by Beyonce

Deep Red by Hugo Boss (I already have a fairly good one from Floral Street)

Burberry Woman (the bloke noticed this on someone and asked what it was)

All uplifting, musky orientals essentially.

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Eden perfumes are an independent, vegan company from Brighton who don’t test any ingredient or finished product on animals (they don’t ship to countries who demand testing by law). You can post bottles back to them and they will refill them for you.

The main thing that attracted me to them over other cf perfume companies is that, as well as creating original scents they also sell some highly recommended dupes for existing perfumes. The perfumes have similar names to the original name/brand or you can search by which notes you prefer under the perfume shop tab such as ‘fruity’ ‘woody’, ‘musky’ etc.

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The Sample Gift Box (£21.60) contains three 10ml perfumes of your choice and is incredibly useful for figuring out if you’ve made the right choice before committing to a 30ml or 50ml bottle. I find this sample size of bottle to still be handbag friendly but they are far easier to spray than some smaller tester bottles, which are way to fiddly for me.

Left: SHE 060 is a very fresh, sexy scent that reminds me of the best selling unisex scents in the early 2000’s. Centre: TREASURE 019 is an oriental fruity/floral and isn’t meant to be a dupe for Beyonce’s Heat but really reminds me of it, plus it’s lasted all day – 1 down, 4 to go! Right: BERRY BERRY 018 is meant to be a dupe of Burberry Woman but the bloke immediately said that wasn’t anything like the one he meant. I don’t know if the lass just said Burberry and didn’t know which specific one she was wearing or what? Sadly, it also faded incredibly quickly on my skin so was no use as a general perfume even. We’ll have to keep trying…

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In the second gift box I’ve ordered, I’ve included ‘Million Dollar Man’, ‘Oud Wood’ and ‘Virgin Waters’ which is a dupe of Virgin Island Water by Creed which I’ve never heard of  but apparently it smells of the beaches in the Bahamanian islands. Sold!

Keep in touch, I’ll let you know how our search goes…

Which scent would you want a dupe for?

❤Chrissie❤

 

Bouja Bouja – Caramel Pecan Praline Ice Cream – Too Salty or a Total Dream?

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  • Dairy free
  • Gluten free
  • Organic
  • Vegan

I mainly bought this Bouja Bouja Caramel Pecan Praline ice cream as it’s dairy free, plus it sounded amazing! When I first tried a chunk – I’m not going to lie – I found it way too salty and intense but I realised that’s it’s blended for a reason. Eaten all together the ingredients create a fantastic salty-sweet flavour.

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Even though it’s dairy free, it’s incredibly rich and filling so a 500ml gave me four desert portions, even though I was eating it out of the carton as you do. Also available are Chocolate Salted Caramel, Keep Smiling M’Gorilla Vanilla (!?), Hunky Punky Chocolate, good old Raspberry Ripple and Hazelnut Chocolate Truffle. 110ml costs £2.00 and 500ml costs £5.49, well worth the price in my opinion.

Which flavour do you want to try?

❤Chrissie❤

Finding the Perfect Cruelty Free Perfume with Floral Street Scent Exploration Kit

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It sounded like the most perfect perfume, containing every note that I like. I bought it and loved the fruity top note, as I knew I would…Then it changed. The middle note was very strong and I absolutely hated it! The bottom note was warm and musky which I liked but I’d had to endure the middle not for three hours to actually get there – gaaagh!

This is why I vowed never to buy a perfume a) without smelling it first and b) without seeing how it changed over time on my skin.

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Floral Street perfumes have three notes but they all mix together perfectly and immediately so no unpleasant surprises. The scents also last for hours and are noticeable without being over-powering. All their perfumes are vegan and no ingredients or finished products are tested on animals.

Floral Street offer this fantastic Scent Exploration Kit (£68) with 8 perfumes in 1.5ml tester spray bottles to eliminate any guess work. It comes with a voucher for a full size 50ml bottle, once you’ve picked your favourite scent (which also arrives in a recycled/recyclable cardboard box). If that sounds a bit pricey you can buy The Discovery Set (£14) to either help you decide which larger perfume to buy or to simply have a choice of handbag-friendly sized scents.

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I’m going to go through each scent and try to describe it in my own simple, honest (and slightly unknowledgeable) way.

London Poppy – This reminds me of every lads aftershave in the 90’s. The one’s the girls used to pinch because they were so unisex and fresh.

Wonderland Peony – Fresh, light, flowers of Spring.

Neon Rose – The air on a sexy Summer evening.

Wild Vanilla Orchid – Warm, sexy and sweet. Nothing like an obvious perfume – more like the natural scent of someone you’re snuggled up to.

Iris Godess – I’m sorry but this is more like ‘Iris Grandma’. Next!

Chypre Lotus – About as subtle as a brick but incredibly sexy. Similar to YSL Belle d’Opium. Prrrr

Ylang Ylang Expresso – The scent drifting from a hipster coffee house. I’ll let you decide whether that’s a good or bad thing.

So the one I’m going to buy is….

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Wild Vanilla Orchid!

I have nothing like this in my perfume collection but I’ve always wanted something subtly sexy, which actually lasts on my skin.

Which one would you choose?

❤Chrissie❤

The Body Shop Colour Crush Lipstick

/ Vamp It Up Mcr (Chrissie) / 3 Comments

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I bought The Body Shop Colour Crush Lipstick (£8.00) in Luanda Peony as I wanted a neutral pink. I was also attracted to this particular lipstick as all of the reviews said how moisturising it was. A few reviews also suggested it wasn’t highly pigmented and I liked the idea of just a wash of colour for daytime.

It turns out that this isn’t a dusky pink but rather a deep cherry pink shade, which is very pigmented and bright! It is very flattering if you have green (or blue) eyes, so I’m good with that. Another thing which surprised me was the subtle shimmery effect. It doesn’t highlight any unevenness or look too frosted and 80’s so don’t let the word ‘shimmer’ put you off.

I do find the Marula oil content to be moisturising and it does glide on easily, with an even colour pay-off, even when my lips are dry in places. It was still visible after four pints which, for a normal bullet lipstick, was impressive. I am so glad this has a really subtle rose scent and doesn’t smell or taste like kids sweets like some lipsticks I’ve owned – urgh!

The packaging has a simple twist up bullet with a lid that clicks on and a clear base so you can actually see the colour you are buying.

  • Community Trade agreed
  • Buav (leaping bunny) approved.

 

Rating 5/5

❤Chrissie❤