Top 10 Beauty Products For Under 10 Dollars/ Pounds! Collab with Lo!

Hello guys! Gee here, as always. However actually this post is going to be a little different than usual, as me and Lauren thought we would share our top ten beauty products under 10 dollars/pounds with you! The majority of these products will, obviously, be drugstore and go easy on the wallet of those on a budget (especially now that it comes up to christmas!). Make sure you check her lovely blog out! Let me know in the comments what you think of this co-authored post and if you'd like to see more, or send me a message over on twitter/instagram @geebeautyx. We've worked so hard on this and we hope you love it!

Writing from me, Gee, will be in bold whereas Lo's writing will be in italics.

Hey everyone!
Lo here! Today I'm Collabing with my girl Gee who you all know and love :) 

If you're anything like me, you could really use some champagne quality product recommendations on your beer quality budget! Finding great products for a low price can be a ton of trial and error. Luckily, we've gone ahead and done the work for you! 

I hope you guys enjoy this Collab. And comment with what your favorite products are! Lauren's Intro

The first product on my list will be the Wake Me Up concealer from Rimmel London. This concealer is probably the first concealer I owned (apart from pinching my mum's terrible stick for quite a few years, which I will admit to) and it's something I've repurchased ever since then! Of course, I've tried other concealers but Wake Me Up seriously does the trick for hiding blemishes and my dark under eye circles. I'm not so big on the matching foundation, yet my foundation is actually from the same brand! 

UK Superdrug £5.49

US Target $8.49

The first product I want to mention is the L'Oreal voluminous mascara in carbon black. I adore this mascara, I've been using it pretty consistently since high school, I always have at least one tube of it, but if we're being honest.. I keep a back up as well! If you want an awesome mascara at an awesome price, you need to check this one out.

U.S. Walgreens, $7.49
UK Superdrug £8.49

The foundation that I am a big fan of from Rimmel is the Match Perfection foundation, a formula that is perfect for combination skin like mine and very affordable. It isn't the best I have tried, however it is well worth the money I spent on it and I have repurchased it several times when my piggy bank has started to run  dry...The foundation isn't very long lasting, and is pretty much gone by the time I get home after working hard all day seven hours later. However it blends easily and doesn't make my skin too oily, even if applying a powder on top of this base always helps.

UK Superdrug £7.99

US Ulta $8.99

I have tried sooo many different types of makeup wipes, I find that I usually prefer the drugstore brands. Ponds in particular are my favorite. I was super loyal to my maybelline makeup wipes for so long, but I got crazy and tried a different kind. I LOVE these. I actually keep these in my purse in case I end up staying at my boyfriends or a friends unplanned. I also keep them in case my friends don't have any, and I have to physically take their makeup off after a drunken night (yes I'm that girl) You have no idea how many nights these babies have come in handy. 

U.S. Target, $8.99
Unfortunately this is not a UK product! 

Ooh, now on to a great option for those of you seeking a fab gel liner for a low price! A full review is soon to be up on my blog showing this gorgeous matte black liner, it is the Morphe Gel Liner and it is beautiful! Honestly, I have never been so in love and I would pay WAY more than I actually payed for this creamy formula. It goes straight onto the brush easily, and although it smudges a bit easier than I would like it to, if you match this with the right liner brush you are all set! 

UK Beauty Bay £8.95

US Morphe Online Store $8.99

I know my friend Gee mentioned a gel liner also, so i considered not adding it to the mix, but I couldn't resist! If you follow my blog at all, you'll know I'm obsessed with the maybeline studio gel liner. In my humble opinion, it's the most amazing liner I've ever used, and at a drugstore price, you honestly cannot beat that!

Just a comment of my own, I love this gel liner too! It is great and I own it as well, it is awesome in different ways to the morphe liner as it doesn't smudge so easy however I wouldn't say the formula is as creamy, but these two gels are probably the best on the market right now!

U.S. Ulta, $8.99
UK Boots £7.99 

If you're looking to apply a powder, you may have recently seen my Peaches & Cream translucent setting powder review - and I really liked this product! I would say this is a brilliant buy and I am absolutely devastated that I was an utter IDIOT and let it slide out of my makeup box right onto the gravel outside a friend's house when getting out of the car. Ugh! Yes, this product was awesome for such a cheap price and I really would say it was worth every penny.

UK Beauty Bay £6.50

Sorry, this product isn't available in the US!

Sticking with maybelline here from me, the baby skin primer is one of my all time favourites. I like to use it when I'm not wearing any makeup and it just helps to make my skin look super even and flawless, which makes it an awesome base for under makeup too.

U.S CVS $6.99

UK Superdrug £7.99

The final product from me will be another that can only be bought online - but it is my FAVOURITE! Definitely the best deal I've ever found, last week I ordered 15 bitty jars filled with gorgeous glitters from bulkglitters.com, for $1 each!! (£0.81) The postage to the UK was quite expensive, but it was still a deal well worth it at £22 in the end for all 15. They just came yesterday, and they are so amazing! I apply them on a brush sprayed with the Urban Decay All Nighter setting spray and damnnn. They stay in place so good, I kind of struggled to get the glitter off of my arm after the swatches I started to do last night! A post on these beautiful glitters, their swatches and the entire haul will be up on the blog soon so keep an eye out!

This product is only available at bulkglitters.com for $1 or £0.81 for a bitty jar filled with glittery goodness!

The last product I want to mention, although I'm sure it doesn't need mentioning, is the NYX Cream lip sticks. Those things are amazing, and although they do get a lot of credit, I still don't feel like they get enough credit. Why are ABH liquid lipsticks so popular when you get a better product (in my opinion) for less then half the price?! They're long wearing (as long as you let them set before eating, drinking or kissing) and don't dry out the lips at all! I literally need one in every single color.

U.S. Ulta, $5.99 

UK Boots £5.50

Thanks so much for reading guys! Happy saturday, enjoy the rest of the weekend, we really hope you found this post useful! Make sure you check out Lo's blog  here

Find her on Twitter, instagram, and facebook 

You can find me, Gee, on social media; Instagram and Twitter !x Let me know if you have any questions or want to suggest any awesome products too! Bye!

bulkglitters.com Giant Haul!!

Hey guys, it's Gee here with a post I have been so so excited for! I've waited and waited and they came, plus my camera USB is finally here so my photos don't completely suck! But yes, it's my bulkglitters.com haul and I AM SO IN LOVE! I am about to tell you about an awesome product, for such a low price, that I am obsessed with right now! It is the bulkglitters.com cosmetic grade glitters, sold in bitty jars for just a dollar each (but shipped world wide). These glitters cost me £22 for 15 jars with shipping charges (I live in the UK so it's a little pricey!) but they are awesome.

I'd been looking for some glitters for a while and really struggling to find anything brilliant but affordable - that is, until I came across this website. bulkglitters.com sells all sorts of glitters, from craft glitter to cosmetic, in a varying amount of quantities. There are so many different colours and effects to choose from, like metallic or holographic! I am crazy about them, they are honestly so worth the money and just beautiful.                      

Anyway, so here are my swatches. BLING BLING BLING! Look at that camera quality, thankyou USB cable, no more crappy iphone camera! If you're actually wondering, I use the Canon Eos 600D camera. I love it and it's great for a beginner!

From left to right we have; Purple Moon, Moon River Blue, Slinky Silver, Copper Rose, Red Dragon,  Lava Storm Red, Golden Tiara, Mists Of The Mint, Mint Julip, Pink-Tastic, Star Struck Silver, Paragon Sky, Gemini Green , Peach Fuzz, Orbital Orange

Before applying the glitter I sprayed my brush with the Urban Decay All Nighter Setting Spray which always helps to keep lovely glitter in place.

Slinky Silver

Red Dragon

Moon River Blue

Lava Storm Red

Mists Of The Mint

Paragon Sky

Mint Julip

Star Struck Silver

Gemini Green

Orbital Orange

Purple Moon

Golden Tiara

Peach Fuzz 

Copper Rose

Pink-Tastic

Well, that's all 15! Thanks for checking out the haul, I hope you have found a product to die for through this just like me! I will be back on Saturday with another post for you all, let me know what you think in the comments or over on twitter/facebook @geebeautyx !

Makeup By Gee - Some Of My Looks

Hello, everyone! If you haven't stumbled across my little domain before, I'm Gee, and I'd like to thank you for checking out my blog. You can find me on twitter and instagram @geebeautyx and today's post is going to be about getting to know me better. Kinda. 

Anyway, I thought instead of writing about my makeup for once; I would actually show you! This post will contain some of the looks I have done on family and friends recently, and the products I used to apply them. But first, I'm going to tell you about where I want to be in the makeup world!

So..Hmm...Where to start? I started playing with makeup when I was about 12, when I decided that I would pinch some of my mum's drugstore foundation that was entirely the wrong colour for my skin. She'd never really been a big makeup enthusiast - I don't know where I got that from, really. So off I went to school one day, keeping my head down and avoiding her as I made my rice krispy breakfast as not to get caught. I can see why she didn't want me to get into makeup so young now as it did highlight my flaws to me, and make me start to feel self conscious without it, something I've gotten over only recently. I also ended up being told 700 times about my "slag lines". Eventually I mastered foundation, but the same thing happened maybe a year or two later with my eyebrows..And then eyeliner...The photos still haunt me!

Anyway, so these last few years I've realised I am quite good at makeup in comparison to the people around me and I've really developed an artistic passion for it! My days of "slag lines" and block brows are long gone, although occasionally my wings start to look a little Amy Winehouse. 

I am quite a smart girl, although I hate tooting my own horn, and I dream of one day becoming a paediatric doctor or a vet. I have considered becoming a makeup artist full time and going to a makeup school, but I just feel like I have the potential to really help people and save lives, and a secret passion for biology as well as makeup! However I would love to become a self taught freelance artist on weekends, to help save money while at medical school, instead of some crappy job where I can't choose my hours.

Now, onto my makeup! So firstly, this is a look from the weekend on a friend of just eyes. This smoked out silvery purple look is complete with my brand new Morphe eyeliner, and made her gorgeous green eyes pop! The colours I used came from the Urban Decay Smokey Palette and Vice 4, and a W7 Neon Palette believe it or not! I used Roller Lash mascara (which I swear by, it is awesome) to give her fluttery gorgeous lashes.

Also, here is another eye look - this peachy look was created using Maybelline 24 Hour Drama Black Gel Liner and my Vice 4 palette, using the Mac brow pencil in Spiked for brows again. I am so proud of this, I really love it and the girl I did it on was soo happy!

That was just a few looks, let me know if you'd like to see some more. I know I am no where near good enough to be a MUA yet - but I'm booking lots of lessons and practicing all the time! Hopefully eventually I will get there, and you can watch me progress until eventually I become great at makeup! 

The Scary World Of Counterfeit Makeup

Happy Sunday, everyone! Thanks for reading another post on this blog, it is my one week anniversary of starting up and I'm really loving it - this gives me a space to talk about makeup all I want without giving everyone around me a headache (it is my favourite conversational topic and much to my dismay, not my male friends). If you'd like to hear more from me, you can follow me on twitter and instagram @geebeautyx - I also post my own makeup looks there, although I am hoping to start creating step by step tutorials here soon!

Image from buzzfeed

Anyway, I thought that today I would talk about something really frightening once you really get to know about it - counterfeit makeup. Although most people know that counterfeit products are low quality and usually a lot cheaper, the ingredients used in these makeup dupes are a complete mystery to the rest of us. And just remember that anything that goes on your skin, is absorbed by your body.

What is counterfeit makeup? Counterfeit makeup is when cosmetic products are made by unassociated companies to look exactly like high end makeup but without the same combination ingredients. Sometimes it is sold with the statement that it is counterfeit, but many people just sell off the products at what seems like a "great discount" on a high end piece of makeup.

However once you hear this, you'll much prefer to pay the extra and buy genuine makeup rather than risk it with counterfeit.

Image from Wikipedia.

Lead

It has been reported that counterfeit makeup can have up to 16x the legal amount of lead in them. Lead is a metal that can be found in most places, however it can cause irreversible damage to the body's nervous system. It can cause learning difficulties, high blood pressure, or even worse...death. It is a highly toxic metal and a very strong poison.

image from The Global Healing Centre

Arsenic

The Daily Mail conducted an experiment in which they bought counterfeit makeup online for testing, and found traces of the poison arsenic in the products. Arsenic is deadly, but dealers of counterfeit products do not care for the health of those they are dealing with - only getting as much money as they can out of the product.

Image from The Daily Mail ; One of these "Bad Gal Lash" mascaras is knockoff - but which?

Rat Droppings

Disgusting, I know! Traces of rat droppings have  been found in these cheap knock offs, due to unsanitary and unregulated conditions in the factories that they are made in. So many diseases are carried and spread by rats, can you imagine what this could do when you are putting it on your face?

Image from Happy Gate

Human Urine

Although it is not makeup, counterfeit perfumes have also been tested and shown to contain traces of human urine. CMV, cytomegalovirus, is spread through urine and is a virus belonging to the herpes family. The symptoms of CMV are similar to glandular fever (which is a very nasty, very tiring illness that you do not want - I've had it) and the virus stays in your body for the rest of your life once infected, although it usually becomes inactive.

Image from Britannica.com

Mercury

Mercury is found in the air, water and soil. It has also been found in counterfeit makeup! At high levels of exposure, Mercury can cause harm to many vital organs and the immune system. At even higher levels - respiratory failure and death. Is it worth it for a cheap deal?

There are many other harmful things that have been found in counterfeit product, including aluminium and dangerous amounts of bacteria like e.coli. This christmas it is well  worth telling family and friends thinking about buying their beauty products from untrustworthy sites like eBay about the large possibility that these products will be fake, and the lurking dangers/gross obscenities behind them!

I hope that this has given you all the information you need to make the right choice about your makeup collection! I was blind about it all once, until I read an eye opening article somewhere a while back - and now I daren't buy makeup anywhere other than official sites like beauty bay or the Debs counter.

Thanks for reading my Sunday post! I'll be back on Tuesday, hopefully with my long overdue Primark haul post and decent pictures from my camera - yes, I gave in and ordered a new USB to connect it to my laptop after losing it...oops...

I will see you all then, please leave a comment and  let me know what you think or maybe even follow for email updates! Bye, bye! Gee x @geebeautyx

Gee's November Favourites!

Hi guys! Welcome to my fourth blog post. So far I am keeping up with the every-other-day plan, although I am short on time,, and I really hope you're enjoying reading! You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram @geebeautyx if you'd like to see more content from me, and follow the blog for email updates every single time I post! If you'd like to leave me a comment, to just say hi, ask me to check out your blog or give your opinion on something go ahead, I love chatting to readers. 

So, yes, I am going to follow the popular trend of a monthly "favourites" post surrounding the products, fashion, movies and music that I am currently really loving at the moment and I hope you can love them too.

I do apologise for the quality of my photos at the moment, still can't find the camera cable that will connect it to my laptop so I can share my photos with you :( 

Anyway, yes, so although November is not my favourite month of the year (especially with the freezing cold British weather! Apparently it snowed in some places last night!) and I would much rather be sun bathing on the beaches and taking selfies with my girls, buying bikinis or dining in fancy restaurants abroad - I guess I'm stuck with this blustery, muddy time that comes around annually. There are some benefits though - who doesn't like to snuggle up in comfy onesies drinking hot chocolate? Not me!

My favourite thing when I come home after a long day and freezing cold toes, is definitely a nice hot bath. But once in the while, there's one thing that makes my bathing time almost twice as relaxing.

Lush. Damn, that store is aaaaamaaaaziiiinggggg. 

Some people say the smell when you walk in sends them dizzy or sick, but for me? Walking into a Lush store is like climbing the stair case to heaven.

And my favourite lush product is most definitely the gorgeous "candy mountain bubble bar"! You crumble this swirly pink and white delight under the tap as your bath runs to create an array of bubbles on top of sweet-scented pink water. 

They don't have a lush in my town unfortunately but last time my boyfriend's mum (she is one great lady) went to the shopping centre in our closest city she picked me up three of them - and I have to say they are probably the best Lush products I have used. 

Okay, on to my favourite music at the moment. Now, my music taste differs quite a lot actually. I enjoy quite a few different genres - but mostly it's indie or pop blasting out of my speakers. My all time favourite band is Catfish and The Bottlemen (who I am very excited to be going to see soon!) and although this album has been out since about April, the Ride is still very much always on repeat in my house! It is such a great album, and I love it as much as their first album, The Balcony. The two albums are quite different, the Ride includes some slower, more acoustic songs like Glasgow and Heathrow. My number one song on the album? ANYTHING. Yes, in the sense that I love anything and everything Catfish brings out, but also the song - "Anything".  They are brilliant if you love indie music, and I don't think any other band can ace their sound as well as them.

From the Hollister website - my camera cable is still missing,

Next on my list is my favourite scent at the moment - one of the scents in a long line of body sprays from Hollister Co. The name of this amazing spray is "Solana Beach", a body mist that just takes you back to those brilliant summer memories I mentioned earlier.  Now I've bought two Hollister sprays before that I forgot the name of, butI have had this mist for a while, but you know what it's like when everyone doesn't know what to buy each other for christmas and everyone ends up with boxes of unopened smellies! So, I started to use it last month and it's amazing how little I have actually used, as it has become my go-to daily scent. I've had so many compliments on how nice I smell, it's such a great brand and all of their body mists are awesome, I will definitely be rebuying.

Of course, I must include my favourite makeup this month as it is, a makeup blog! Well, I'm sure most of you makeup junkies will know that duty free is awesome for picking up awesome cosmetic deals! My Dad travels a lot with work, and brought back the Urban Decay Eye Potion Primer and All Nighter Setting Spray for me as they were on offer in an airport somewhere! Well, these products are amazing. Since purchasing, my makeup has stayed on for so much longer. I wouldn't say the all nighter spray keeps your makeup on for a full 17 hours as promised, but it definitely does the trick at stopping your hard work budging for most of the day. Definitely, definitely worth the money! (even though they were a gift, hehe. Love you Dad.)

My favourite Netflix selection at the moment must be the movie they just added, "What's your number?" It's trending now in the UK and came up on that list along with The Crown which I am about to watch - although I've never been big on watching Netflix series as I usually get bored after like three seasons of unhealthy binge watching, hehe. Anyway, this movie is a cute RomCom about a big sister and her quest for love after Ally Darling realises that she is lost in her life, having slept with 19 guys and still being single - so she begins a search for an ex to spend the rest of her life with, refusing to up that number, along with the help of her (very) hot super snoop neighbour. I really liked this, Netflix are adding a lot of great content at the moment and romcoms are my no 1. genre. 

Recently, I read a book called "Wonder", written by R.J Palacio and it was an emotional roller coaster. I laughed, I cried and I smiled over the course of two days when I couldn't put the book down! It focuses around a little boy named August and the people around him, told from all their different perspectives, as he starts school and struggles to fit in due to his facial disfiguration. Auggy is a heart warming and wonderful character and I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, I would recommend it to anyone.

My final favourite for November 2017 is this fluffy, soft scarf from Primark! I will be posting my Primark mini haul soon, however this is definitely my favourite product of the month. I don't usually do much shopping at Primark - there was a time when a lot of the products seemed to dump quality for the ability to keep their prices low, and their best section was definitely the rack of bed socks as you line up to pay (so, so cozy). But now the animal print, polka dot, vibrant socks have competition-  in a trip to primark last week I managed to pick up some super cute winter wear for a reasonable price and of high quality! Especially, my lovely new scarf. It reminds me of those gorgeous fluffy poofs people have on their keychains! It is so warm, and keeps me nice and toasty when I'm braving  the biting cold outside. I'm sure it wasn't too expensive as well, no more than 4 or 5 pounds and well worth it! 

I hope you enjoyed my November favourites, everyone. It was lovely to have you visit my little blog! Like I said, make sure you get in touch and let me know what you think. Do you have any book recommendations for me? Or Netflix shows that you think would change my habits? Comment below, or tweet me @geebeautyx! Thankyou for being nice enough to visit my little domain and it would be amazing if you could maybe even be my first follower? Gee xo