Life Updates - June 2014

I have never done one of these posts before just because I never really blogged much on here and I didn't feel there was a need to blog on my life. So my life hasn't been that exciting but I have a few updates in which might be interesting to you and I just want to write a nice and informal blog post that I don't need to edit or look over. 

Anyway the first update is that I might be buying a place of my own...eek! This I think is the biggest update and the most exciting one for you and especially for me. I don't know for sure if I will be buying the house just because I don't know how much money I can borrow which can be the only thing which could turn this around. The house is my granddad's and I want to buy it just because it is a brilliant way to start on the property ladder and its a place of my own. I live with my parents, brother and a dog and I have the smallest room which is nice living with my parents but I need the extra space now that I'm older and I do want to be more independent and just get on the property ladder. I don't actually know what the place is worth just because my parents haven't got a valuation on the place yet but I might be able to lower the price just because its family owned and I wont have the estate agents fee to pay. I think it will be a good life experience moving on my own but then again its scary at the same time just because I will be on my own without my parents there. Anyway this might not even happen for many reasons but I really hope this works out and I can buy a house of my own.

The next update is that I am now 21!, I turned 21 in April and I didn't have anything special for my birthday apart from going to highclere castle for my birthday. I love highclere castle due to my love of Downton Abbey. It was a nice and sunny day and I drove to highclere with my mum and we spent the day looking around the house and just roaming around the grounds. If you love Downton Abbey then you will love highclere castle. Turning 21 is a big milestone for anyone, so turning 21 was a big deal for me. No one believes me that I am 21 just because I look younger than what I am which will be a big bonus for me when I'm a lot older. 

  I will hopefully be churning out blog posts a lot more now. I have been doing youtube for such a long time now and I want a different challenge. If you have a look at my blog, then you will see posts from a couple of years ago and they where not very consistent and just ended up being a few a year. But hopefully that will all change. I have changed my blog name from laurensmart1993' blog to Miss Lauren Jane. I wanted a name change since I have grown up a lot more and I think it sounds more professional. I have also changed the blog image to be more grown up and suit the name change. If everything goes ok, then I hope I will be blogging at least once a week. So you will me seeing a lot more posts from me from now on.

 My job is the same since I have been working now for the company for 1 year and 6 months. If you don't know me, my job title is Contracts Management and Health and Safety Admin for a national company. I love my job and I love the people I work with. Also my relationship status is now Single. I decided to break it off with my ex. It was an on and off relationship and I decided I wanted to find a better man and have a proper relationship that doesn't end up in a big row. 

I think that is it on updates on my life, I hope you enjoyed this post and I will update you on the house situation when I know more and If I can get a mortgage.Please let me know if you like these posts and if you would like to see more posts like this?

July Faves 2013

Hello everyone, so this post is going to be my favourite beauty products for the month of July. I haven't done a favourites for a few months now because I usually stick to the same products if I like them but I have decided to try out a few new product.

If you like to watch the video version of the July favourites, then please click on the below video which will take you to my youtube channel.

So I only have 5 favourite products for the month of July, some new and some old.

Maybelline Fit Me Concealer - This is a lovely concealer because the texture is sooo creamy and soft to touch which makes it a pleasure to apply. Fit me covers most problem areas such as blemishes, spots, redness, acne scars apart from dark circles. I would use another concealer to cover up dark circles since this does cover the darkness to some extent but it doesn't completely cover and get rid of dark circles. This is a brilliant concealer for £5.99 and I have mine in 15 fair.

Collection (2000) Fix Me Up - The Collection fix me up is a spray which should hold makeup in place in hot weather. When the UK had hot weather, I tried it out and sprayed it on my face. It felt really cooling and smelled amazing. My face did feel quite wet from the spray but after five minutes, the wetness went and was left with normal looking makeup. I felt like this helped my makeup to stay in place whilst I was at work all day and was still left with makeup in the evening.

Maybelline Master Precise Liquid Eyeliner - I have never really been into liquid eyeliners because I am never good at liquid eyeliners and I was a bit scared of trying it out. However this has completely changed my mind. The eyeliner was a felt tip which makes it a lot more precise and easy to draw a line onto the top of the lashes. Very easy to use and easy to take off with a makeup remover, loved it.

Urban Decay Cream Highlighter Sin - The Urban Decay cream highlighter in Sin I have had for a couple of years now. When I first got it, I loved it but after a while, I found new products which took over and this got forgotten about. One day, I looked through my makeup drawers and found this out again. It is a lovely champagne shimmery colour which I think will look lovely on all skin tones. The colour is brilliant for the summer and highlights the areas well.

Benefit Coralista - Benefit Coralista is probably one of the best blushers I own because it smells amazing and the colour is a lovely coral with a slight shimmer. Since it is a coral colour, it is perfect for the summer which is why I chose it again but it looks lovely on all skin tones especially fair like me. The shimmer isn't overpowering which is good because its nice and subtle and the colour is noticed a lot more than the shimmer.

So those were my favourites for July and I know there wasn't a lot but I promise next time I do a favourites there will be more.

No7 Brush Cleanser First Impressions Review

For some time now, beauty companys have released brush cleansers such as the clarisonic skin cleaning brush. I know clarisonic has released two brushes called Mia which has become popular. Then there are other brands which are starting to catch on that the clarisonic's skin cleaning kit is a hit in the beauty community.

I little while ago, I went into Boots and wandered over to the no7 counter and saw they had their own version of the Clarisonic Mia but cheaper. It was around £30 so it wasnt as expensive as the Clarisonic. However the quality might be different since it is a lot cheaper, so I bought it a couple of weeks ago just to try out a brush cleanser.

I have just started trying it out this morning, and thought I might as well do a first impressions review just to let you know my intial thoughts of this product.

So as I said I used it for the first time this morning, and I used the Soap And Glory Peaches And Clean to work with the no7 brush. First of as always I used water to wet my face before hand. Then pumped out 2 lots of the Peaches And Clean cleanser and spread that evenly, on my face so that the brush had something to work with. On this brush there are two power settings, I used the first power setting which is a slow moving setting. I put the brush under the tap for a couple of seconds and started using the brush to cleanse my face.

At first, the brush seemed really harsh and rough on the face which made it a bit painful cleansing the whole of my face. I thought it would be soft and gentle but no it was quite harsh. I dont know if this is because the quality might not be as good as the Clarisonic since it is cheaper. But it seemed harsh for the skin, so I might not consider using this every morning and night.

I would not recommend for people who have very sensitive skin since this would damage the skin a lot more and could be painful in use. Overall this brush did the job by rubbing in the cleanser into my skin but it feels very rough and harsh which might put me off using the brush all the time.

What Tenerife Videos I Will Be Uploading To Youtube

As you all know, I have been to Tenerife last week and I thought I might as well do some videos around the trip. I am thinking about uploading 4 or 5 videos about the Tenerife holiday. This is what I am thinking uploading -

• Whats in my tenerife travel make-up bag
• Whats in my tenerife travel skincare/beauty/random bag
• Tenerife experience and what I did 
• Tenerife haul
• Pictures of the holiday

I hope this might not seem too much about tenerife but this holiday was my first ever proper trip abroad and I want to share my thoughts about the trip and what I did whilst I was there.

Whats in my tenerife travel make-up bag should be on youtube now for you to watch and the others will follow shortly.

Then after the whole tenerife videos, I will get back to normal with the beauty videos, I hope you enjoy :) x-x

First Thoughts on the Revlon Lip Butters!!

So there has been a lot of hype around the Revlon lip butters for a while now since they got released in the US about 8 months ago or something like that. Anyway everyone has been raving about this product on youtube and blogs. The lip butters were released in the UK about 2 months ago and i found these hard to find since everyone went out and bought them. Took me a while to find but i did finally tracked some down and i bought three.

I went onto my local boots and they stocked the lip butters. There were a range of lip butters from brights to nudes and i think they had about 8 shades to choose from. But looking on the boots website, they have 14 shades in total. Anyway i bought 3 lip butters since they were on offer 3 for 2 at boots at that time. The lip butters are all pink shades because i prefer pink to any other colour. The 3 that i have are Sweet Tart, Cotton Candy and Strawberry Shortcake.

First off, i love the packaging, i love the design on the front of it because its a nice and its a fishnet design which makes it more interesting rather than just a plain boring packaging. The packaging seems quite secure and not going to fall apart quickly. It's quite hard to get the packaging away from the lip butter, which is a good thing because it keeps the lip butter secure.

Sweet tart is a quite bright pink and properly the most pigmented out of all 3. Cotton candy is the lightest out of all 3 and this one to me looks like it has a gold sheen going throughout the lip butter. Strawberry shortcake is sort of like Sweet tart but a lot lighter in colour.

I havent really tried them out that much so i cannot give a review but i can say from using the lip butter a few times, they seem moisturising but quite hard to apply evenly. I think that they are ok but not over the moon with them but i think i need to give them a proper workout in order to have a proper review.

First Thoughts On : Opi Divine Swine and Excuse Moi Nail Lacquers

I have never owned a Opi nail Polish or Lacquer in my life and i thought to myself, i have got to try one of their nail lacquers to see what was all the hype about. Opi is a quite expensive nail polish brand and i think they are stated and started in the US and you cannot get Opi in drugstores in the UK like Superdrug or Boots. There has always been a lot of talk and hype about Opi's nail lacquers and i have finally decided and let myself buy two of their nail lacquers.

Both of these nail lacquers are from the muppets collection which was released at christmas 2011, so its still pretty new to their collection of nail lacquers. There is a range of different nail lacquers you can buy in this collection but they are pretty expensive to buy in the first place. I bought these two nail lacquers on ebay and yes they are real ones since i bought them from a proper supplier and checked other people's reviews before purchasing.

The first one i bought is called Excuse Moi (Love the name). I have to say that this one has got glitter and colour to the polish instead of just glitter. This means that you do not have to use as much to get the full effect you want. It is a pink colour with lots of glitter. The glitter comes in a variety of colours such as pinks, reds, blues and greens. Just when you look at the bottle you can see all the different colours of glitter and how pretty this colour really is. I have never had a nail polish like this one and i really cant wait to try it out soon.

The second nail lacquer is called Divine Swine and i think this is one of miss piggy's collection. I have seen quite a lot of videos and reviews about divine swine because some people like it and some people dont, so its a love/hate relationship with this one. Just through the glass bottle i can see that there is silver chunks of glitter with purple glitter in a clear finish. So i know this is not going to be quite a strong colour and would need a lot of product to get the full effect i want. But i am still looking forward to try this product out sometime.

Overall i am quite happy with these two nail lacquers from Opi and i hope they will live up to the hype. Both of these nail lacquers can come in mini's or full sixe. I know the full size is 15ml which is quite a good size for a nail polish. I will keep you posted on the outcome when i finally use them x-x