4 Brands I fell in love with in 2016

It's so easy to stick to your favourite beauty brands, especially if you're working with a beauty budget. Therefore picking up that fail safe mascara/lipstick/foundation is going to be your safe option. 

Last year I made it my mission to branch out, I tried so many new brands and made some great discoveries. Today I thought I'd share with you my top picks from brands I totally fell in love with in 2016. 

DECIUM

You might have heard of DECIUM?! They're an umbrella of beauty brands, owning more than 10 in the beauty world; the most commonly talked about are The Ordinary, NIOD, The Chemistry Brand and Hylamide. Considering they started trading in 2013 they have come along fantastically well and this is really based on their etho; 

"We're founded on the principle of doing everything others don't do and we are changing the world of beauty based on this principle. Today, quality is no longer defined by merely price points or distribution channels. Quality today means being authentic, being different, being functional, being beautiful and being sensibly priced, even to the wealthy. And we respect these principles. We choose to serve the educated, the curious and the intelligent who appreciate our dedication to this very genuine definition of quality."

Basically it's all about fair pricing, quality ingredients that actually target skin issues rather than products fillers and big unattainable claims.

I also heard that Brandon Truaxe (the mastermind creator of DECIUM) created some of Sunday Riley's biggest selling serums! Now if that's not a selling point?!?!?

If you have some spare time Google Brandon Truaxe, he truly is a skin care genius and he's not to sore on the ol eyes either.

Here are the product I absolutely fell in love with and recommend to you; 

Hylamide SubQ Anti Ageing 

Hylamide SubQ Eyes

The Ordinary Buffet 

Huda Beauty

Huda Kattan is a beauty blogger based in Dubai. She started her blog in 2010 and now seven years later has her own lash & lip product line sold world wide and a massive 17.3 Million followers on Instagram. Huda has a background in professional makeup work, working with world-class make-up artists, amazing brands and some huge models. Therefore Hudas opinions and thoughts on products are well trusted and her own makeup line just HAD to be pretty amazing! 

Her liquid lipstick and lip liner are one of THE best I've ever tried; long lasting & moisturising! It's in my top 2 liquid lipsticks.

Huda Beauty Liquid Matte

NYX 

If you've been reading my blog from the beginning you'll know I've always loved NYX, but being that it wasn't sold in the UK it was pretty hard to get my hands on. Hooray, in 2016 Boots and a few other online retailers started to stock NYX! I think they're great value for money and have some real gems. Here are my favourite products that I'd happily suggest : 

Micro Brow Pencil

Soft Matte Lip Cream
Butter Gloss 

Kylie Cosmetics

Kylie Jenner released her own makeup brand last year. She started with liquid lipsticks & pencils and then progressed onto eyeshadows and lip glosses. I snapped up her lip kit on its first release and absolutely loved it! The pencil is long lasting and the formula on her liquid lipstick is so soft and moosey, it is by far my favourite matte lip product I've ever tried. Sadly I've heard she changed up her formula and that they aren't as soft on the lip and in fact are pretty drying. I'll need to be trying out another kit for myself to see if this is true; but first time round she got the Matt liquid lipstick down! 

The glosses are gorgeous! I love a nude gloss & the shade range she's released is perfection to me. Now I'm pretty sure Kylie wasn't in the lab concocting the formulas herself, but she's definitely picked out some big hits for her brand. 

Matte Lip Kit
Gloss

What have been your top beauty finds recently ?

The £2.99 Bath & Body Works Candle DUPE

My first Bath & Body Works shopping experience in the Dubai Mall was a sensory overload! All those rave reviews we hear from over the pond, saying how amazing the B&BW scented candles are, well they are all true! Boy are they true! The oh so cute packaging 'sleek glass containers' and the array of scents *insert heart eye emoji here* aghhh I need more *insert crazed Megan Leigh face here*.

Unfortunately us Brits annoyingly don't have a chance to purchase them here in the UK, but when I was browsing in my local B&M HomeStore, as I regularly do, I just love a good bargain home store! I stumbled across what looked like a B&BW candle look alike.

Real Techniques Bold Metals Diamond Sponge | FAIL

As you can tell from the pictures I own 2 Real Techniques Bold Metals Diamond Sponges and they both look a little different from each other. There is a story behind that so make sure to read to the bottom of this post for the tea.

I am a massive fan of the Beauty Blender sponge for foundation and concealer application, but as it has a rather hefty price tag of £16 + (dependant on where you buy it) Real Techniques miracle complexion sponge is my second favourite sponge to use.

Touch and application wise, it is super similar to the real OG Beauty Blender, but this one is less than half the price at an affordable £4.99.

When Real Techniques released a new sponge in the shape of a diamond aaaaannnd covered in marble print (swoon) being the beauty junkie that I am I just had to buy it, if nothing else it will look pretty displayed on my makeup table, right!?!

A Beautifully British Concept | Katherine Daniels Cosmetics Skin Care

Katherine Daniels is a new brand to me. I first discovered their products on beautybay.com and became intrigued by their company's ethos. An all British skin care brand that treats most skin types and conditions, whilst also aiming to combat the issues our skin faces from living in the UK. Such a fab idea as our British skin is most definitely put to the test with the ever changing climate.

Makeup Geek 'Tiki Hut'

My Makeup Geek eyeshadow collection is slowly growing and they are by far my most used single shadows.

Tiki Hut is the newest shade in my collection, it's a warm medium brown with yellow undertones and a matte finish. 

How to make thin fine hair look fuller!

I, like many others, have a hard task keeping a curl or wave in my hair and for that matter any kind of volume at all! My hair is thin but I have a lot of it and it's naturally fairly straight, after years of trial and error I have worked out some fool proof tricks on how to fake that va va voom!!

Condition Before Shampoo 

Radical I know! Conditioning hair first allows your hair to get a light moisturise and then follow this with your shampoo. Doing it this way round prevents conditioner building up on the hair and weighing it down even more; I ALWAYS do this!