Step away from the #KylieJennerChallenge

This 'challenge' is starting to really grind my gears. I've never seen people be so foolish in my life! I understand that people like to try things out and experiment, but then there is taking things too far. Just because something has become a trend doesn't mean you have to follow it.

These lip suction devices that are going around are so bad for you! I'm no doctor but I have done my research and have read up on what professionals have said. A few people have been stupid enough to use shot glasses, hairspray lids and more random objects to create the effect. I've not seen any have a happy ending.
Is it really worth the risk of premature wrinkles, burst blood vessels, bruising and more for just 30 minutes of plumper lips?
It makes me completely cringe to see people with their lips looking extremely uncomfortable and unnatural, most end up looking like poor Jeff Fungus from Monsters Inc.

This trend should really be called the #JeffFungusChallenge. 

Some beauty bloggers claim that you can use these safely if you don't have them on your lips for too long and use it on occasion, but if you are going to do this on a regular basis it will still cause the long-term effects.
The only positive to this is that at least it's not lip injections where you're pumping chemicals into your body.
I'd be happy to create a tutorial on how to create fuller looking lips with just makeup, if that is what people would like to see? You can simply wipe makeup off at the end of the day.

If you have been thinking about getting these devices, please PLEASE reconsider!

What are your thoughts? Have you tried them out?

Budget Beauty Storage

My beauty corner really needed a tidy up and some new storage, but being a student I was on a bit of a budget. I found all these storage pieces at H&M Home, they were great value and really good quality which often lacks in budget products. 

I now store all my current skincare products and perfume on the small wooden tray £9.99, it keeps them all in one place and displays all the pretty packaging instead of them being stuffed up in a tin. I pop all my cotton pads in the glass jar £6.99 which keeps them clean and means I can chuck away the packaging cotton pads come in as it's not particularly attractive. Finally I got the set of 3 storage boxes £12.99 where I now store all my makeup brushes and other beauty accessories, I like how they are all different sizes and the heights are great to display brushes. 

My beauty corner now looks a lot more refreshing and modern and I haven't had to bust my bank! I think I'll be purchasing more from H&M Home in the near future. 

The Best Eye Primer Ever.

I have the most awkward skin, the majority of my face is dry but then I have really oily eyelids. I have tried out eye primer after eye primer and I've only just found the perfect solution to avoid that annoying creasing of eyeshadows and printing of eyeliner.
MAC's Prep + Prime 24-hour Extended Eye Base has worked a dream for my eyes. It's £16 for the tube so it's not extortionate and for how well it performs I think it's worth every penny!

Normally I would come back home after uni or work, or even just see in the mirror during a toilet break that my eyeshadow or eyeliner would be all over the place.
After seeing that this primer claims to be sweat-resistant I thought I would try it out. I popped it on and did my eye makeup as normal at about 9am before work, I then came back home at almost 7pm and my eye makeup hadn't budged a bit!
As my eye products are now staying put I don't need to bring them in my bag to top them up, which not only saves bag space but I'm also not using up as much product so they'll last so much longer.

The product is really soft and smooth, it blends out translucent so it's perfect for all skin colours and you only need the tiniest amount to cover the entire lid. I even pop a little bit on my under eyes before concealer to reduce that from creasing too.
From now on this is my staple eye primer and it will be forever in my makeup bag!

Have you tried out this primer or now tempted to try it? Would recommend any others? Leave your comments below! 

Life is a roller coaster

The past couple of weeks I have had a bit of an emotional roller coaster, I went from a high note and then dropped down to a low note.

I'll start of with the high note, if you follow me on twitter you may have seen that in November I started working as a retail makeup artist at MAC. I applied for the job in September and after a loooooong recruitment process I got the job! I was over the moon. Since I was about 14 I've always loved the bright colours and creativeness of MAC and always wanted to be part of the brand.
I will probably start owning a lot more MAC cosmetics but I won't be biased when it comes to reviews on my blog and I'll still use my loved products from other brands, so don't worry about that.

From my Instagram @Alexandraahowe

Then just over a week ago I had a very unexpected situation occur. I'm currently a second year student so I now live in a house shared with some of my flat mates from halls. I had some criminals break into my bedroom at 6pm one evening. They smashed through my bedroom window with a huge rock from the garden. Luckily I wasn't harmed and nothing was stolen as I had my valuables with me in the kitchen at the time and all 6 of us were in the house so we all reacted before they could actually get into my room. Since the incident I've been a bit emotionally unstable, exhausted and haven't had the time or mentality to get blog posts up or be on social media as much.

I'm starting to get back to being myself again but it will take a while to be completely at ease, but working at MAC during the weekends has been helping get my mind off things. I've also just arrived back at home for the Christmas holidays which should also help me relax a little more.
Sorry that this isn't the most exciting post (apart from getting the job at MAC) but I just needed to get it off my chest and let you guys be all in the loop of things. I hope you're all well and my next post should be something a little more christmassy and fun!

LUSH Halloween & Christmas Launch Event

I was lucky enough to attend an event at LUSH in Nottingham earlier last week where other bloggers and I had an early insight into their Halloween and Christmas collections. To start off, it smelt so damn amazing in there! I was first shown the very striking Sparkly Pumpkin which features an energising blend of juniper-berry, lime, grapefruit oil and a whole lot glitter that stuck to my hands all evening. Then we were shown a demonstration of Sparkler which was pretty cool as its just yellow from the outside but when popped into water it sparkles out orange from the centre and spins around in the bath like a Catherine wheel! Northern lights also does this but its purple with a bright green centre to look just like the northern lights when mixed into your bath. They were the main Halloween ones I liked but there were also lots of soaps and gift boxes that snap like a cracker when you open them! You can check out the rest of the Halloween collection here. 

Then we moved onto looking at the Christmas collection which features lots of glitter, stars and cute animal shapes. The Holly Golightly is extremely christmassy looking, silver glitter on the outside, bright dark green in the centre with spicy scents and all topped off with holly and cherries. I loved the look of The Christmas Hedgehog  but I don't think I could ever bring myself to use it, I can't just crumble up such a cute looking thing! However, it does contain shea and cocoa butter which is so good for your skin, especially from the harsh winter temperatures. I tried out Yog Nog which is a very creamy skin drink that smells like fudge, it left my skin so soft and smelt incredible. If they had this as a shower gel or moisturiser I would have probably picked that to take home but it's a soap which isn't a product I personally use. Again there are so many products I could talk about so you can check out the rest of the Christmas collection here.

At the end of the event we got to pick 3 products to take home and I chose Northern Lights as it was such an exciting concept of how it dissolves in the bath and I just want to see those amazing colours explode in my bath. After hearing soooooo much about Snow Fairy I had to try it out for myself and it smells just like the Bubble Gum lip scrub that I've used for years. I finally picked Candy Mountain as it smells like vanilla and candy which are my favourite smells! It's also not an animal shape so I do think I'll actually use it instead of having it as a cute decoration in my room.

It was so lovely to meet lots of other bloggers that live in or near Nottingham, I've never really had a chance to before and I hope to become good friends with them and meet up again in the future. 

Thank you to LUSH for hosting the event and offering us lots of yummy sweets and cake as well as a few products to take home. 

Will you be trying any of these products out this Halloween or Christmas?

If you haven't already entered, check out my giveaway here where you can win a £20 ASOS voucher!

200 Followers Giveaway!

This weekend I reached 200 followers on Bloglovin! When I decided to start blogging along side my Youtube channel I was so worried that no one would ever follow my blog and that it wouldn't catch on but now it's so lovely to read your comments about you liking my content and to see my followers slowly but surely creeping up. As a thank you I am going to be giving away a £20 ASOS voucher along with a few other surprise little bits and pieces.
ASOS is one of my favourite places to shop as you can get such a variety of brands, clothing, accessories and beauty products. It's also great for us students as they always have some sort of discount going on. As everyone has different styles I thought I would do a voucher so you can use it on something you've been eyeing up for the past few months or for a lovely impulse buy.

You can enter my giveaway using the Rafflecopter app below and the rules are as follows;
You must follow my blog on Bloglovin as this is where I reached the goal but all other entries are optional, the more you do the more chances you have! The giveaway is running for 2 weeks and will end at midnight on Sunday October 12th and the winner should be announced within the next few days after the closing date.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I look forward to seeing what the future holds for me and my blog and again a big thank you to each and every one of you for supporting me.

My Autumn/Winter Nail Polish Picks

One of my guilty pleasures is nail polish. I have a stupid amount for someone who doesn't do it as a job but I just feel like my hands and feet are naked without it. As the autumn will be soon upon us I thought I'd put together my favourite autumn and winter shades from my collection. 

On the catwalk for A/W 14 there was a noticeable trend of sci-fi and fantasy so I picked out two polishes that fit along perfectly with this trend which are Soho Silver by Nails Inc a beautiful silver and Pacific by BarryM a very mystical ocean blue.
For the classic deep green I picked out Watermelon by BarryM which is a high shine polish so it looks very glossy. 
I love the burgundy plum shades that feature in these seasons and No.7 Temptress and Kiko 243 Plum Red are perfect, they're both very similar shades but Temptress has more purple undertones and Kiko has more red. 
Now time for the nudes shades! Chinchilly by Essie is a lovely pale grey with a hint of brown and I love the name as it very much is the colour of a chinchilla. For a more purple shade, Pillow Fight by Ciaté is great, it's kind of like a lavender grey and then Vanilla by BarryM is the perfect matte nude shade, this has been one of my favourites recently, it's such a beautifully soft shade. 
Then for the final shade I picked out Matt White by BarryM as monochrome has been a major trend and continues to be during the cooler months. I think if it's worn right, white polish can look very elegant.
Do you wear any of these shades or will any of them be joining your collection this autumn/winter?

Classic Blueberry Muffin Recipe

In the past few years I have grown a love for blueberry muffins, especially after my trip to New York earlier this year where we had muffins for breakfast everyday! However, I had never actually made any myself until lately yet I love to bake all kinds of yummy things. They aren't actually the same measurement as your classic cupcakes as they're slightly more stodgy and because the blueberries give off a lot of moisture so I thought I'd put together this little recipe for you to also enjoy!

This recipe creates lovely moist and fluffy muffins that don't feel so naughty to treat yourself to.

Ingredients for 12 muffins: 
2 eggs
250g self raising flour
120ml milk
100g caster sugar
150g butter
1 punnet of blueberries

Now time to put it all together:

Step one | I used a hand electric mixer but you can easily use a spoon or whisk, you just need a little more elbow grease. Mix the butter and caster sugar together until smooth. Add the eggs until the mixture is light and fluffy. Gradually mix in the flour and milk until fully combined and then with a spoon fold in the blueberries. 


Step two | Pop some muffin cases into a muffin tray and spoon in the mixture over half way up. Place in a preheated oven at 180°C for approximately 25 minutes.


Step three |  Take the muffins out the oven and leave in the tins until fully cool so they stay in nice shape. If you want them a little sweeter, add a thin layer of sugar glaze or icing sugar on top.

If you make any I'd love to see, just tag me either on Instagram or Twitter with @Alexandraahowe

Review: Bobbi Brown Tinted Moisturising Balm

In the summer I don't tend to wear as much foundation, I just don't feel the need for as much coverage and when it's hot I hate the feeling of my foundation just melting off. I also want to have some sort of SPF on my skin as I'm naturally very pale which means I can burn pretty easily but something without that suncream smell. This then led me to try out tinted moisturisers as most of these had these qualities, they aren't as high coverage as foundation, they're moisturising and often have SPF.

Over the past few years I've tried out a few drugstore tinted moisturisers but my problem with them was that they never had a shade pale enough, I'd always end up looking like some oompa loompa!

In a video quite a while ago I remember Essie from www.essiebutton.com was talking about this tinted moisturiser by Bobbi Brown that she currently loved. She also has pale skin so I thought there must be a shade for me and she was also rather convincing! It wasn't long after that I had this product in my hands. 

The Bobbi Brown Extra SPF 25 Tinted Moisturizing Balm claims to be 'A lightweight foundation alternative for dry, dehydrated skin, this formula is ultra-rich, and blends easily, giving skin a dewy look with light coverage.' I had already scraped out £36 so I was begging for it to do what it says on the tin. I got it in the shade Extra light tint as I was a little tanned for summer, I really mean a little. If I were to get this for the middle of winter then I'd probably go for their even paler shade Alabaster. 

Now onto the actual review! I have found this product so nourishing and creamy without being heavy on my skin, its kept away my dryness just like it said it would.
The shade was just right, as long as you apply it evenly you don't get any sort of orange tone. If you forget to blend a bit it does tend to stand out a little more orange but it's normally easy enough to spot and sort it out. This winter I reckon I'll get the shade lighter as it would be too dark for me then.
The coverage is all I wanted, just something light and dewy so I don't look so dull and tired. I really love the dewy finish it gives, however I do tend to put a little bit of powder just on my T-Zone as this can get a little oily and make it look too dewy in these areas.
One thing it doesn't mention on the description is its smell. It has this lovely almost minty fresh smell that really helps wake me up in the morning. When I say minty fresh, I don't mean minty toothpaste but more on the lines of tea tree and aloe vera.
The packaging is simplistic and classy, it also seems to keep the cream at a nice cool temperature from it being made of glass. It's also great if you accidentally scoop too much product out as you can easily pop some back in which you can't do with products that come in tubes. Not super hygienic I know, but I always make sure my hands are clean when using products like this and I only use it on myself so I don't mind doing this.

90% of the time I apply this product with my hands but sometimes I use my Sigma F80 Flat Kabuki to just smooth out the edges or to full apply it, it just helps to get it right into those nooks and crannies.
Above you can see the before and after when I use this product, I like the fact my freckles are still visible as a lot of foundation masks it.
I'd really recommend this product to anyone with dry skin and just wants something with a nice light and dewy coverage. For me it's a staple and something I reckon I'll keep repurchasing until the unlikely event of something better coming into the market.

How Blogging Has Improved My Life.

I thought I would do a more personal and inspiring post, I haven't really done a post like this before but I'll try and do my best!
Blogging has really helped me in many different aspects in life, I never really realised it would.

Writing
When I was younger I really struggled with reading and writing, I learnt these skills later than the average child due to hearing issues. Because I was slightly rushed in the learning process, I never really got to enjoy it, nor learn it as thoroughly. So as you can imagine, I wasn't the best when it came to English at school or in written exams. When I started to blog, I finally found a way to enjoy writing and reading and in the long run my skills have improved, they still aren't amazing, I'm far from becoming the next J.K Rowling or Shakespeare but writing essays has become easier towards the end of A-levels and at university, as well as my writing in my blog posts.

Getting into university, a job and work experience
Now, I'm not saying that blogging alone has got me into university, a job and work experience, I have worked my arse off at sixth form and do a lot of other things outside of blogging, but it has definitely helped!
If you have your own blog or youtube channel where you express your passions, I think it is so important to have that on your CV or in your personal statement when applying for university, as long as it is relevant. For example, I'm doing Fashion Communication & Promotion at university so my blog linked highly with the course, I got a job over last summer at Boots so again it is linked highly and the work experience I've just got with Umberto Giannini is also linked with it. They were all so interested to look at it and loved the fact I have such a passion for fashion and beauty.
I think it makes you stand out from those who may do nothing outside of the workplace/university or nothing at all. Of course there are other things that will make you stand out aside from blogging, for instance amazing grades, already completed university or other extra courses and I'm sure there is more.

Using Design Software
Before blogging, having a youtube channel and A-level Graphics, I had no idea how to use iMovie/Windows Movie Maker or Photoshop. Blogging and making videos gave me the opportunity to try out these programmes- playing around with these has helped me to grasp the basics and that's all I really needed for my content.
When it came to using it at A-level and university I was already a step up because I already knew the basics. It really helped to boost my confidence in my work because I was scared I would be awful compared to those who did an art foundation year. Obviously I still had a lot to learn and have become much more swift at using Photoshop and other programmes since university as I have to use it for so much in every project I do. I still just stick to the basics on iMovie because that's all I need to know so far and I don't really use it other than my youtube channel.

Confidence
When I was younger I was a victim of bullying, it was only a few years ago that it really started to fade away, I was very quiet and reserved but had so much I wanted to say and do, that's when I found the youtube world where I started expressing my passion for makeup.
I was about 15 when I started you-tubing and I loved doing fun looks, then came along lovely comments from people- never tonnes but enough to boost my confidence. Over the summer a few years ago I gained the courage to sell jewellery which I advertised through my videos, having people actually want to buy the stuff I created was amazing! Then I discovered blogging and I wanted to give that a try, again I got lovely positive feedback from people and it made me so happy; it still does.

If I hadn't started youtube or blogging, I honestly don't know where I'd be today or who I'd be today. I'm so glad that I'm not a shy little girl that gets bullied anymore.
I'm now a grown woman who stands her ground at those who hate because I know I have more confidence than I did and all the support I need from friends, family and fellow bloggers.
I reach for my dreams and through the help of this world of blogging it has pushed and helped me further and has got me to where I want to be and will hopefully help me with where I want to go in the future. I get to express my creative side and passions outside of university projects and my day-to-day life.

Now, I'm not telling you that you all have to go start blogging to get where you want or become who you want to be, there are plenty of other ways, but if you're wanting to start a blog, I say go for it! There is nothing to lose and I know there are so many of you out there who are afraid to start one out. Yes, it may not be perfect in the beginning, but everything takes time. It has taken me 4 years!
I hope you like this post, and I hope it has helped some of you that needed a boost to get started.

How has blogging helped you in life? Did you want to start a blog but haven't and now think you will?
Let me know in the comments.

My Nail Polish Collection & Storage

So as you can see, I have a little obsession with nail polishes. For Christmas I finally got some nice super organised storage for them all, before they were all just shoved in a old perfume gift box. 

I managed to fit 83 bottles in this rack, but thats a mix of full size and miniatures. The rack fits roughly 70 full size bottles. Its clear acrylic and is pretty sturdy, it doesn't feel like it would break easily. 

You can buy this rack from here for £19.99 on ebay. 

I've organised mine in brands, but I've thought about changing it into colours but because of different brand bottle shapes I may not be able to fit them all on.

In order from the top of the rack to the bottom I have Barry M, Illamasqua, Deborah Lippmann, Miss Sporty, Collection 2000, Maybelline, Models Own, Butter London, Topshop, Essie, No7, Nails Inc, Kiko, Rimmel and Ciate. There are also a few random nail art ones in there but I don't know what brands they are from. 

Out of all of those my favourites have to be Topshop, Essie and Ciate as they seem to stay on without chipping for the longest and are well pigmented so you only need about 2 layers to have it fully opaque on your nails.

How do you store your nail polishes? What are your favourite nail polish brands?