Beauty: Cherry Blossom Gradient Lips, AKA "The Petal Pout"

I'm Back!!!! I hated not doing a 'real' blog post yesterday but it was so worth it for such a good cause and I hope that if you could donate, you did. 

Onto a merrier subject today and to bring a bit of gorgeous spring inspired joy into your life, I thought I would try some gradient lips inspired by the beautiful Cherry Blossom tree that is taking over my garden at the minute. How friggin' yum do they look...not like I'm biased or nuffin'....

So to create this yummy look I thought I'd bring in one of the Freebies I got in my Lush Goodie Bag, the Celebrate Lip Tint. As per usual with my lip routine that I shared with you little pickles the other day, I'd already buffed my lips to get rid of any crusty dry bits and left a bit of lip balm on there for a few minutes to make them all soft and marvellous. So I took my Celebrate and popped it over the centre  part of my lips, kind of avoiding the lip line. Then I built up some of my heavenly and very popular with you kids, YSL Provocatively Pink Lipstick on my lip brush and slowly and carefully edged my mush with this.

 So then your left with two quite definite different colours on your lip- by the way; choose any colours you want! I think this would look boss with a lilac and dark purple too but I'm the pink kid as you know so this was the obvious choice for me. Im def trying some different colours soon- oooh maybe white to black if your daring! So yup- You have the two separate colour rings on your lips and all you need to do then is push your lips together- a lip smack I'm calling it and this blends the colours together. 

To finish it off and give a little staying power I got a bit of my uber pink blusher (that I'm reviewing this week BTW) from my Sleek Blush Palette and dotted this onto the YSL with my finger. What do we think kids? Im loving it! It makes me feel like an Asian Princess; essentially I'm Mulan on Disco Night!!! Hurrah!!! I'd love it if you gave it a try with as many different colours as you can and post them back to me! I want a full bouquet of petal lips.

My Perfect Lips Routine

I love a Spot the Difference. Arrow-words are my favourite and I like that one where you get one word to start off with and you kind of have to fill in the gaps but yup, Spot The Difference is pretty good. So lets play. For my more regular readers can you spot the difference between this lip picture and say the one on my YSL Provocative Pink Post? 

Did you get it? If you did Hurrah!!! 10 Beabarella points for you! Its the fact that my lips don't look like I have dried bread on them anymore! I have finally gotten rid of my dry skin and todays post is all about how I did it. Are we sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin! 

This shit is amazing! It is literally like heaven in a tiny pot. I've heard about it maybe a billion and seven times but just never really thought to pick any up and then at my Lush night I saw it skulking around the till and thought - sod it, I'll have one. There was to my memory, a kind of chocolate vanilla one maybe, and also a candy pink kind of one but anything with Mint in and i'm pretty much sold; Mint and Chocolate? Whoah there pickle! Too much excitement in one pot. Basically inside this gorgeous little beast is Caster Sugar, Jojoba Oil, Peppermint Oil and Vanilla extract so apart from that equalling a whole lot of lovelyness it mean it is very edible! Win! 

So you stick your finger in this pot to get some sugar crystals and then in circular motions buff away at your lips. More then anything how pretty does it look? It's like tiny little glitter flecks. Once you've buffed like mad you just lick it off. Fun, delicious and convenient!  

So the next stage is lip balm. Use whatever one you fancy. If you read my post last week you will know that I am obsessed with Burt's Bees at la mo so that is my weapon of choice.

I'd leave it a few minutes before you stick your lipstick on just to let your balm do it's stuff. So say you've left it ten minutes, then blot off any excess balm and apply your lipstick. I've gone for my absolute favourite, the irrepressible Lady's Choice by Benefit.

 So there you go. It's not exactly rocket science or anything but just s few little bits I thought I'd chare wid'cha! Do you kids have a better routine then mine? Am I missing something out? Let me know, you know I love hearing from you all!

No7 Vital Brights Lipstick in Blooming Pink

Hello lovelies. Well finally, as promised a non nail polish post!! So I went into Boots to spend my birthday pennies and this display was the first thing that attracted my little peepers. The best thing was that I had a £5 off No7 voucher too! No7 vouchers are like the herpes of the cosmetics world, once you get one, you always have one knocking about somewhere....  So there were a few different blushers but at the minute I'm swamped in blushers so I thought I would go for a lippy instead and the one that caught my eye was this little beauty in Blooming Pink. Vital Brights is Boots new spring/summer range and in all honesty on looks I could have bought it all. I love the packaging, It's the main the reason I bought this really- I'm a sucker for a pretty box.

As well as looking pretty outside, I like the actual lipstick packaging itself. Its very simple, almost clinical looking but it really makes the colour sing out. Tres Chic! 

As for the innards, which is probably the bit your most interested in.... This is the flap from the Boots website: "Their lightweight texture gives a sheer, glossy finish while the moisture-rich formula delivers sumptuous, long-lasting colour."

I agree with a bit of it. The texture is lovely, part creamy, part glossy. It slides on wonderfully with no dragging. The first layer is very sheer but it can be built up to a brighter shade with a few more coats depending on how sheer or bright you want it so I wouldn't exactly call it sumptuous but it is a lovely colour. My lips are a little dry at the minute but it didn't make them look worse and has actually moisturised them a little. The thing that I really don't agree with was that it's long lasting. I would say it stayed on my lips roughly an hour but I imagine if your eating or drinking it would slip right off due to its glossiness. 

Taken without the flash

(god you can tell I have been in the sun for about 2 minutes, freckles all over the shop!) 

and with the flash...

This was with about 3 slicks of the lipstick as I like my colour with a bit of a pop. I really like the shade but there was one slight problem that due to the colour of the lippy, it made my teeth look ever so slightly yellow in some lights- not the best so make sure your packing some whitening strips if you smoke or drink a crap load of caffine. Don't let this put you off though because it was ever so slight but I just wanted to put it out there. The price was brilliant at £5 (normally £10 but I had my No7 voucher) and I would buy this again if I had a voucher knocking about, if I spent £10 on it I might be thinking that for another 3 quid, I could be getting a MAC which generally lasts a little longer on the lips. It is a lovely colour and has a yummy sheen to it. I don't think Boots are being completely honest with their bumf about it but don't let that it put you off because they are half right and an half the price this is an equation I can work with.