Limited Collection and Alice and Eliza Christmas Goodies

I'm lucky enough to know someone who works behind the scenes at Marks and Spencers, who has very kindly sent me some of their Christmas range!

 

This is the selection of Alice and Eliza goodies I was sent. I love the cute fair isle pattern and deer print!

These are bath fizzers, and they smell great! I can't wait to try these out. The scent is described as 'Christmas spices and crisp evergreens', so perfect for winter evenings. These are available here for £4.

This is a hand warmer. I always like to have gloves handy when the weather starts to get chilly, but I really love the idea of these! You snap the metal disc inside the hand warmer to start a chemical reaction which heats up. According to the website, you can re-use the hand warmer by placing it in boiling water, however it doesn't say how long you're meant to leave it in for! It just says '5-7' and I'm not whether it means seconds or minutes. I'll have to give it a try. The hand warmers are available here in a range of covers for £5.

This is a strawberry lip balm. It smells fantastic, but I've not tried it out yet to see how well it does at moisturising! This lip balm is also available in Orange and Frozen Blackberry from here for £3.

This is such a cute set of polishes! I'm really keen to do a Nails of the Day post with these. The set also comes with an emery board. I can't find this on the Marks and Spencer website, so I'm not sure how much it costs!

The last item from the Alice and Eliza collection is this cute wash bag! This set comes with a shower cream and body puff, the website lists the set as containing a hand cream too, but it isn't pictured online and my set didn't come with one. You can buy this set here for £7.50.

 

Now on to the Limited Collection stuff! I love the bright colourful packaging! Again, loving the deer print.

First up is this cute make up set. This includes four eye shadows, blusher, eyeliner, mascara, lip gloss, and a little brush and applicator. You can get this set here for £12.50.

Here are some swatches of the eye shadows and the blusher. The shadows are all shimmery apart from the brown shade which is matte. They're all really pigmented though, and the blusher is a really cute natural pink.

This is the lip gloss and eye liner. The liner applied really easily, and the gloss is a lovely semi sheer pink.

 I was pretty intrigued by this when I first spotted it! This brush has a really light shimmer powder stored in the handle, which is applied when you use the brush on your skin.

Shimmer!

I thought I would get in a right mess with this but it was surprisingly mess-free! You can buy the brush here for £7.50.

Next up is this eye shadow palette. This has got some great shades in it, and comes with a handy applicator too.

Swatches! The silver is pretty much the same as the one in the other set, but I really love the silvery green colour in this palette. You can get this here for £8.50.

This is one of my favourite items from the selection I was sent. I love the colour of the blush and the deer printed into the powder.

This is such a pretty pink! This blusher is available here for £6.

 

This is the last item from my awesome Christmas selection! These eye shadow dusts are so pigmented, but I can see myself making a complete mess with these. There's a reason I normally stick to pressed shadows!

 

 Look at that blue! I couldn't really do these shadows justice with the light today, but take my word for it, these are gorgeous. The blue has got little shimmery bits of gold in which look awesome, the purple is really pigmented, and the pink is just a really soft light shade. You can get this set here for £9.50.

Overall, I think that Marks and Spencer has got some great stocking fillers available this year! I can't wait to try out all of these properly. Keep your eyes peeled for some more in-depth reviews soon!

*Although these items were sent to me for review purposes, all opinions expressed are my own*

Face of the Day #11

This is the other New York Color eye shadow that I was gifted, its called Pink Whisper, and it is a really lovely soft pink. Continuing my current trend of re-using things that I've not bothered with in a while, I teamed this up with another eyeliner that I think either came from a Glossybox, or a SheSaid beauty box.

This is the Eyeko skinny eyeliner pencil in plum, and its really not a colour I would normally use. But I really like the way it contrasts with the pink here.

I've also dug out this sample of Becca lip and cheek tint. This was definitely from a previous Glossybox, and its kind of brilliant. You need the tiniest amount to create a really cute blush effect, so this is genuinely a product that goes on and on!

 

Thanks for reading :) xxx

Weekly Book Round Up #12

I really enjoyed this. I wasn't sure what to expect really, because I wasn't all that keen on The Casual Vacancy, but you should all know by now how much I like a good crime/thriller/detective novel. They are difficult to review without giving much away though! The main character is Cormoran Strike (his dad is a rock star so we can forgive the name) and the story follows his exploits as he tries to discover whether a supermodel committed suicide, or was murdered. You've also got a female perspective in the form of Robin, his temporary secretary, who ends up loving detective work so much she's willing to take a pay cut to stay working for him. Whether there will end up being a bit of a romance there, I'm not sure. Robin is engaged, but her fiance seems like a bit of a douchebag, she's supposed to be pretty hot, and Cormoran is apparently butt ugly. Who knows? The storyline is interesting and keeps you guessing about whats going on, and I can't really say anymore without there being massive spoilers. So read it for yourselves! Overall, I was pretty impressed with J.K. Rowlings first attempt at crime fiction, and I'm pretty excited to see where she goes with the series.

Nicola's rating: 4/5

This is the last book in the Heather Wells series. These are crime/thrillers, but it's Meg Cabot so they're a bit more lighthearted and fun. Or as fun as a murder mystery can be anyway. I thought this was a really good ending to the series, Heather is in the final stages of planning her wedding to private investigator Cooper Cartwright, and starting a new year at the university. This year they have a prince staying at the dorm, so they have loads of extra security around, but someone still manages to murder a student, and attack another! Heather has to discover whats going on before more people get hurt. This book was really easy to read, but I did find my attention wandering in places. There wasn't an awful lot of tension and suspense, but I think that's just how Meg Cabot writes. Anyone who has read Meg Cabot before will really enjoy this series, and if you're new to crime fiction and wanting to give it a go, this is probably a good place to start!

Nicola's rating: 3/5

This was another free Kindle download! I watched a bit of the TV series, but not an awful lot, so I decided to give the book a try. It's all narrated by Mary Smith, who talks about her visits to Cranford and the people who live there. It's sort of like a collection of short stories, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Miss Matty is one of the main characters, and the stories are mainly based around her life and her fellow 'Cranford ladies'. The book is mainly quite happy and cheery, but when there is an accident or tragedy, it's always mixed with a bit of happiness in the way that the villagers rally around to help out. I've not read any Elizabeth Gaskell before so I'm not sure how this compares to her other books, but reading Cranford has definitely made me consider looking into her other works.


Nicola's rating: 3.5/5