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Beauty and the Best of the Rest

~ A lot of beauty and a little bit of everything else

Beauty and the Best of the Rest

Category Archives: Glasgow

Mary Kay Press Event in Glasgow

06 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by masquerade21 in Beauty, Glasgow, Make up, Makeup, review, Reviews, Shopping, Skincare

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Tags

40% discount, beauty blotter oil absorbing tissues, blotting wipes, cleanser, cosmetics, custom palette, exfoliating cleanser, EyeCandy professional make-up, face brush, free gift, Glasgow, good eye make-up remover, lash love mascara review, Lynne Mills, Mary Kay, Mary Kay Compact Pro, Mary Kay Men, Mary Kay Press Event, Mary Kay review, nail lacquer, oil-free eye makeup remover, press event, review, semi-matte lipstick, Skincare, skinvigorate, skinvigorate review, time 3-in-1 cleanser, translucent powder, true dimensions lipstick

Recently I got to go along to a Mary Kay Press Event in Glasgow. It was at the gorgeous Blythswood Hotel in a nice little bar which we had all to ourselves for the event. We got to wander around and try the products placed on tables around the room and ask the Mary Kay staff everything from how the brand began to what their latest products were. Below are some images that give just a hint of the range that Mary Kay has to offer. There is also some interesting information about the brand at the bottom of this post.
Table Pic (2) DSC_0943 (1) DSC_0946 DSC_0944 Mens (1) 20141028_174846 20141028_181414

I got to put together my own palette too!

20141028_174955 20141028_175009My palette wasn’t the only thing that I got to take home with me, Mary Kay were very generous.
20141103_155034 20141103_160440 20141103_161214 20141103_161455 You can buy and create your own custom Mary Kay palette. I still have space in mine and I’m thinking that I will include some brushes and maybe some of my own make-up like eye-liner.                                                                                                               Compact Pro (Empty) Palette : £12.50

20141103_163508I tried to pick my favourite product from my Mary Kay haul and I just couldn’t, everything I’ve tried is really good, but I have 3 products which I love and that I am already using everyday. The skinvigorate brush is one of them. To use it you wet your face, apply a cleanser ( I recently converted to cream cleansers and now there is no going back) I’ve used this brush with the Mary Kay Timewise 3-in-1 cleanser(more about that below) and with my own Elemis cleanser and it works great with both. I’m continuing to use it with the Elemis one just now as I like to use all of a product before moving on to the next one. I’ve used it morning and night for 3 days and I’m already much happier with my skin. Anyway back to how use it: wet your face and the brush, apply cleanser and then use the brush in a circular motion for 15 seconds on each area of your face (forehead, nose, cheeks and chin – don’t use it too close to your eyes where the skin is delicate) The brush has a pleasantly odd sensation which I find quite relaxing. I find a light touch works best as, if you apply too much pressure it can feel a bit like the brush is dragging your skin but if you hold it lightly enough it gently buffs and polishes your skin and leaves it looking and feeling great.20141103_163526 It even comes with batteries included and a replacement brush head (it’s recommended that you change the brush head every 3 months so I will have to pick up some more of those.) The only negative thing I have to say about the brush is that I had to wrestle a little bit to take the bottom of the brush off. I did eventually manage to take it off myself (to insert the batteries)- I’m not sure If my own model was particularly stiff or if it is the same story with all of the brushes but either way it is really not much of an issue and the excellent results are well worth this small hassle.                                     Skinvigorate Cleansing Brush: £35.00

20141103_161607 My second love is this Mary Kay mascara, I actually got one of these in a Glossybox a while back and hadn’t tried it yet ( I told you a like to finish a product before moving on to the next) Anyway I have tried this now and I LOVE it. The finished result is amazing. I’ll need to do a separate post on good mascaras because I have a few that I like but I think this one might be number one.                                                                       

Lash Love Mascara: £16:00

20141103_163318 20141103_163231 True Dimensions Lipstick: £14.0020141103_161949 Semi-matte Lipstick: £12.00

20141103_162736Beauty Blotter Oil Absorbing Tissues: £5.5020141103_161825 Translucent Powder: £18.0020141103_163002 Nail Lacquer: £9.0020141103_162400 The cleanser above is a good choice particularly if you want a cleanser which also exfoliates as it contains little exfoliation beads which do a very good job. This will be a weekend cleanser for me as I can be quite rushed in the morning and when I have used exfoliating cleansers like this in the past I end up finding/feeling exfoliation beads when I am doing my make-up for work, apparently I never manage to wash them all off. I will treat my skin to this on weekends when I have time to make sure it is all properly washed off and it will make a nice little addition to my routine.                                    

Timewise 3-in-1 Cleanser: £20.0020141103_162625This eye make-up remover is my 3rd love. It takes my make-up off effortlessly and works so well that instead of waiting for my Simple eye make-up remover to run out I have just ditched it as I think the Mary Kay one works much better.                              

Oil-Free Make-Up Remover: £13.00

After trying their products I’m impressed with Mary Kay and know I will make future purchases from them. If you want to purchase Mary Kay products too there are a few ways to do this, Mary Kay has 3 million beauty consultants worldwide in over 35 countries. The beauty consultants offer a try before you buy service and let’s face it buying make-up without trying it before hand is just a gamble and  the reason why I have so many full bottles of foundation gathering dust. 

Speaking of foundation, Mary Kay cater to all ethnicities and age groups with all of their cosmetic and skin care products so you should be able to find exactly what you need and stop adding to your dust gathering collection of bottles and tubes.

To find out who is your nearest Mary Kay beauty consultant or to buy Mary Kay products online visit www.markykay.co.uk, now is a good time visit as I spotted some free gift offers today.

Thank you to the team at Mary Kay for all of my great products and answering all of my questions ( the start-up story was particularly interesting, if you want to know the story it’s on the Mary Kay website along with details of how you can become a Mary Kay consultant – they get a 40% discount by the way)

Thanks also to Lauren at Pure PR for letting me attend at short notice.

Thanks for checking out my blog 🙂

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Currys in the Kitchen Glasgow Blogger Bake-off

17 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by masquerade21 in Baking, Blogging, Food, Glasgow, Scotland

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Tags

Bake-off, baking tips, bloggers, Currys, Currys in the kitchen, Food mixers, Glasgow, Glasgow bloggers, Joes Bloggers, Kenwood, Kmix, scottish bloggers, The Cookers School

On Sunday I went along to the Currys in the Kitchen Glasgow Blogger bake-off which was held at The Cookery School in the Jacobean Corsetry Building in Glasgow. The event was organised by Joe Blogs Network on behalf of Currys.

I’m no baker, in fact nothing kitchen related is my forte, so I was a bit nervous about going but I thought it would be fun all the same and it was 🙂 There were a lot of bloggers there so it good day for meeting other Scottish bloggers.

Group ShotImage courtesy of Joe Blogs Network

Once we had all arrived we split into teams of three to bake. I teamed up with Lynne and Paula who were both lovely, you can check out their blogs here and here. We tried our best but none of us were up-tight about creating masterpieces so we had a lot of fun.

Although we weren’t expecting to create masterpieces, the chef from The Cookery School, Danny McArdle  taught us well and demonstrated everything very clearly so I surprised myself by creating some cakes that I was actually proud to take home.

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Image courtesy of Joe Blogs Network

Danny showed us how to bake scones, cupcakes, muffins and a Victoria sponge:

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Danny also gave us a great tip for adding filling to small cakes like cupcakes. Use a tooth pick to make a small hole in the cake and twist until you it is big enough to insert the filing using an icing bag.

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Toothpicks are also really handy when it comes to decorating too:

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When we weren’t baking we were eating, so I can’t tell you which part of the day was most fun. We got to eat one of our scones with some tea and then later we had lunch, I had a lovely soup which I scoffed before I thought to take a picture of it (blogger fail I know) and then we were offered raspberry panna cotta’s.

20141012_125013 20141012_140019

After we had made all of our bakes it was time to box them up: 

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I took a nice full box of cakes home as you can see. See that cupcake with the butterflies on it? I originally tried to make that a halloween cupcake which was topped with white chocolate and had the word ‘Boo’ written on it in milk chocolate but I messed it up quite a bit. This wasn’t too much of a problem as I just used a toothpick to swirl the 2 chocolates together to create a new design and hide my mistake. My top baking tip? Keep a toothpick handy. They can be used for everything from making it easier to fill cakes, decorating and disguising mistakes.

Once our cakes were boxed up it was time to find out who had won the competitions of the day (best baking tip in a tweet and best instagram pic)

Congratulations to the winners who won Kenwood Patissier Food Mixers

_MG_8286

The blogger on the left is Charlotte who was seated at the same table as me during lunch. She’s really nice and has a cool blog – coloursandcarousels 

The rest of us didn’t leave empty handed either, in addition to our bakes we also got to take home great goody-bags:

20141015_225716

I couldn’t believe we were all given Kenwood Kmix’s from Currys. Since I got that, a nice little recipe book and I learned a lot about baking on Sunday I’ll definitely be spending this weekend in the kitchen 🙂

If you bake too or if like me you want to start and you want some funky kit then check out Currys kitch range at http://www.currys.co.uk/

Thanks to Joe Blogs Network, Currys and The Cookery School for a great day!

If you want to find out more about the day or read posts from some other bloggers who were there then check out #currysinthekitchen on twitter or visit  http://techtalk.currys.co.uk/cooking-home-appliances/bloggers-bake-off-the-cookery-school-glasgow/

 

 

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I’m dreaming of a Lush Christmas – Lush 2014 Christmas Range Event, Braehead

05 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by masquerade21 in advent, Beauty, Christmas, Glasgow, Halloween, Shopping, Skincare

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Tags

Bath Bombs, bath melts, Blogger Event, bonfire night, Book, Christmas, Christmas launch, Dashing Santa, Dragon's Egg, face masks, fireworks, Glasgow, Halloween, Holly Golightly, Lush, Lush 12 Days of christmas Advent calender, Lush Braehead, Magic Wand, massage bars, Northern Lights, porducts, Reindeer rock, shoot for the stars, snow cake, soap, Sparklers, Sparkly pumpkin, The Christmas Hedgehog, wizard, yog nog

I was one of the lucky bloggers who were invited to the Lush Braehead Christmas range unveiling event and I can tell you that Lush has you covered (in sparkles, glitter and amazing scents) this Christmas.

lush tree

 

They also have you covered for Halloween with a really cool chic little range that you will be both excited and reluctant to use. Excited because these products smell amazing, reluctant because the look so cute that you might be tempted to use them as ornaments rather than bathing products. 

lush collage 1

In fact, there is a lush product for every occasion… even Bonfire Night.

20141003_175954

 But let’s get back to Christmas and the launch event, I’ll start at the beginning- when I first walked into Lush Braehead I was directed to the treat table:20141003_175841And then I had 5 minutes or so to wander around the store and take pictures of anything that took my fancy before the event started:

20141003_175919 20141003_180525 20141003_180513 20141003_175850

20141003_180116 20141003_180134 20141003_180455

Once all of the bloggers had arrived we had a fun little ice-breaker event where we introduced ourselves and our blogs and told everyone our favourite thing about Christmas (my favourite Christmas thing is surprises but food was a very big theme with a lot of the other bloggers) We were then split into 3 groups and my group visited the Christmas bath bombs, melts and bubble bars first:

20141003_184356

 The Christmas Hedgehog Bubble Bar

20141003_182951

20141003_183157_4 Father Christmas Bath Bomb

20141003_175930

20141003_182249 20141003_182302 Golden Wonder Bath Bomb

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Snow Angel Bath Melt

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Dashing Santa

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Holly Golightly Bubble Bar

After bath bombs we were shown all of the new shower gels:

20141003_180448 20141003_180430

 There a few more including Snow Fairy but my camera was low on battery at this point so I had to save some for the soaps. Don’t worry, the link to the Full Lush Christmas Range is at the bottom of this post.

 We were then shown the amazing and eye-catching array of Christmas soaps:

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 Reindeer Rock

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 Baked Alaska

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Fairy Ring

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Snowcake

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Yog Nog

Then, after a quick hand and arm massage using the massage bars below, we had time for a spot of shopping.

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The one thing I couldn’t leave the store without buying?

20141004_230710

This reindeer rock soap smells wonderful, it’s made from a dried lingonberry infusion that I just love the smell of so much. I think it has beaten rock star soap to be my new favourite.

Thanks to the team at Lush Braehead providing us lucky bloggers with goody-bags the reindeer rock soap wasn’t the only product that I took home with me:

20141004_230230

Thanks Lush!

So which lush product will be at the top of my Christmas wishlist? Well I saved the best until last:

20141003_193348 20141003_193404

The Lush 12 Days of Christmas Book is definitely at the top of my list!

This post has just been a snapshot of the lush Christmas range, they are bursting to the seems with new products and I couldn’t fit them all in but luckily the lush website can. Go discover all the amazing Lush Christmas products at https://www.lush.co.uk/products/christmas or pop into your local Lush store.

Want to keep up to date with all the latest Lush Braehead happenings? It’s easy, just visit them at: 

20141003_195024

 

Thanks for checking out my blog 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Toast of the Town Photography Workshop

13 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by masquerade21 in Glasgow, Photography, Scotland

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Blogger Event, blogger meet-up, blogger workshop, bloggers, Buchanan Street, cone-head statue, Dreghorn Photography, Edinburgh bloggers, flowers, George Square, Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth games, Glasgow bloggers, ISO, Joes Bloggers, lion statue, Millennium Hotels, photography, pigeons, Royal Exchange Square, Shutter speed, Statues, Toast of the town #toastofthetown, workshop

So on Saturday I was lucky enough to attend the Toast of the Town photography workshop hosted by Millennium Hotel in George Square ( a gorgeous hotel, see for yourself at http://www.millenniumhotels.co.uk/millenniumglasgow ) in partnership with Joes Bloggers and Dreghorn Photography.

The workshop was very useful and I learned how to properly use the ISO and shutter speed settings on my camera. I also learned the most important rule of photography – NEVER USE AUTO! 

We learned the basics about ISO and Shutter speed and then we got to practice with our cameras to reinforce what we had learned.

I am so glad that I learned about how to use my camera’s shutter speed settings because now I can go from this:

20140712_130837To this :

20140712_131028We also learned how to pick the right background for portrait photos. My partner for background exercises was the lovely Laura from http://www.lifeasanhourglass.com/  and here are some of the images I took of her :

20140712_12373720140712_124116Then it was time to break for lunch.

20140712_132738I had a haggis bon bon, a mini burger and a venison sausage hotdog. I have never tried venison before but I was very impressed with the venison sausage, it was a little tough but tasted great. There were also gorgeous looking desserts on offer but I was too full to go and get one.

After lunch we visited George Square, Royal Exchange Square and Buchanan Street and were let loose to put our lessons into practice and take interesting photos.

I spent most of my time experimenting with what I had learned about ISO and shutter speed so I took a lot of rubbish photos but there were some that I liked:

Photos from George Square

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Photos from Royal Exchange Square

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Photo from Buchanan Street

20140712_150527At the end of the workshop I was given a nice goody-bag by Millennium Hotels which contained, among other things, a camera cleaning kit which will be very useful 🙂

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To see the pictures taken by other bloggers  during the workshop checkout #toastofthetown on twitter.

Thank you to Millennium Hotels, Joe’s Bloggers and Dreghorn Photography for a great workshop, I learned a lot!

Thanks for checking out my blog 🙂

 

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