Shu Uemura Beauty Boost Evening

Hey guys! This week I had the chance to go and spend a really lovely hour at the Shu Uemura counter in House of Fraser in Glasgow at their Beauty Boost event. I hadn't heard about the event myself, but the lovely Gemma from PinkLipstick1 on youtube (linked here) and Facekitt (linked here) had two tickets and invited me along with her :) Not having met Gemma in person before, it was the perfect opportunity to meet up with a fellow beauty addict and get a little bit pampered at one of the most luxurious makeup counters in town!

Purchasing a ticket (for free - bargainous, no?) secured you a half hour slot of the evening, which consisted of a nice glass of cava, a browse through their gorgeous products and a skin consultation with the lovely ladies at the counter. The evening was promoting their skincare range, and your little appointment slot involved a trip to the swanky treatment room where we were treated to what was essentially a mini-facial with the products best suited to our skin types. I had a nice chat with the girl from the counter (who I am almost 100% sure was called Laura, I'm putting my bad memory down to how relaxing my little face massage was!) and we talked about the funny phase my skin is going through at the moment with it's random little dry patches on my nose, and she selected the products she felt would work best with my skin.

After my time in the treatment room, the other Shu Uemura makeup artist, Mhari, was on hand to touch up my makeup (by which point Gemma was already looking very glam in her gorgeous, vibrant Shu Uemura lipstick!) and I got to try out the mousse foundation which I have been intrigued by for a while. I'm not sure it was entirely enough coverage for me, I do like a medium-full coverage and this was a little lighter, but the finish was beautiful and the texture of the product felt lovely.

And on to the expensive part of the evening - that night they were offering a goody bag worth £25 if you bought any product from their skincare line. As this is Shu Uemura, I knew this was not going to be a cheap endeavour. I am terrible for deliberating over buying products of any price, never mind ones with quite such a high price tag, so I totally surprised myself by caving and going home with a bottle of their lovely Cleansing Oil, which robbed my bank account of *gulp* £28! Never in my life have I spent so much on a cleanser. It has won the InStyle Beauty Buy Award for cleanser three years running, and really is an absolutely lovely product. I've been using it for three days now and so far so amazing, but I'll do a proper review once my skin has been used to it a little bit longer.

The goody bag included a couple of very nice products - a 13ml pot of their Depsea Hydrability Moisturiser (which Laura used in my treatment and it felt lovely) and a fancy Revitalising Firming Biocellulose face mask, which apparantly retails for £10 on it's own (oh my).

All in all I had a lovely evening, and it was great to meet Gemma in person! We're off to a little Lancome event in Glasgow in a couple of weeks which I shall no doubt blog about afterwards - hopefully I can resist the pull of their beautiful Summer collection after my splurge at Shu Uemura!

Hope you've all had a smashing weekend and thanks for reading! Have you tried any of the Shu Uemura skincare line? What were your thoughts if so!?

Lynsey xxx

My Favourite YouTubers - HeyKayli

Hi guys! This is the second instalment of my favourite youtubers series, and this week the lovely girl I'm going to be talking about is Kayli, from HeyKayli! If you are a fan of the very famous Shaytards, you'll recognise Kayli as Shay-Carl's sister in law, and Kayli now has a channel of her own, as well as being part of the popular 'The Moms View'. I only started watching Kayli's channel a couple of months ago, but I think she's doing something incredibly important with it, and that's why I wanted to share it with you guys!

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Kayli is an incredibly sweet girl who never comes across as pushy or over-confident on camera, which actually makes her such a joy to watch. To begin with, her channel was a fun mixture of hairstyling tips and crafting suggestions for parents (she is proud mum of two), and these videos still make up the bulk of the content on her channel. However, when a question popped up on 'The Moms View' asking the girls about body image and weight, Kayli made the brave decision to start a series on her own channel talking about her personal battle with an eating disorder through her teenage years, right up until she got married and found out she was pregnant with her daughter. These videos are not easy to make, and bring up some quite painful memories, but I think talking about this kind of thing, when it is such a prevalent problem in this day and age, is so important. Kayli has had her parents on to talk about their experience with her struggle, and her channel is giving a really well rounded account of how these illnesses can affect not only the individual, but their entire family too. Her videos are highlighting how vital it is to look out for signs of this sort of problem and while she isn't claiming to have any sort of magical solution, I think the very fact that someone in Kayli's position (she has over 70,000 subscribers on her channel alone) is speaking out about the problems she has faced is such a positive thing. You can see from the comments on her videos that she really is touching people, and reaching out to young girls who may be dealing with the same thing.

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Youtube is a fantastic platform to talk about your interests, your likes and your dislikes, and to make videos that will bring a smile to peoples faces, and that's an amazing thing. However, it is also a really useful platform to talk about issues close to your heart, and hopefully help other people who are going through the same thing, and I think that is exactly what Kayli is doing here. By addressing her own struggle in these videos, Kayli is bringing what is still a relatively 'taboo' topic for some people out into the open, and hopefully, by doing so, she can help just a few of the many people out there who face a daily struggle with an eating disorder. What is really lovely is that her series is progressing from discussing her own struggle, to creating exercise plans and sharing lifestyle tips, so that as Kayli herself works towards a healthier body and mind, her viewers can too. If you haven't already, check out Kayli's channel (and The Moms View!) linked below.

Kayli's Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/HeyKayli
The Mom's View: http://www.youtube.com/TheMomsView

Lynsey xxx

Once again, remember to check out my own wee channel here if you fancy it! http://www.youtube.com/user/lynseymacmakeup?ob=0

Books etc.

Hello hello lovelies! Yes, I have just used the name of a book shop as the title of this blog post because, in a nutshell, that is what this is going to be about!

I was a seriously avid reader as a child. My mum, dad and granny all used to read to me constantly, which led to me reading lots on my own, and I loved books! The later years of high school saw a slight drop in my 'reading for pleasure' what with all the work for my Highers, and then Uni came along and I got completely out of the habit of it. Sadly, I had enough to read for my film and tv course, and even more so for my comparative literature course in first and second year, so at the time of night when I used to read, I started watching youtube videos, and never really looked back!

Now, however, I want to get back into the way of reading, so thought I'd share with you the pile of books I have waiting next to my bed to be read over the coming weeks :) If you have read any of them let me know what you thought (I expect The Hunger Games will be one a lot of people have already read!)...

Top to Bottom - Cecelia Ahern - The Time of My Life, Harlan Coben - Caught, Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games, Steve Hamilton - The Lock Artist, Amanda Hocking - Switched, Craig Ferguson - American on Purpose

Also, I thought I'd tell you a couple of books I have thoroughly enjoyed over the past year or so, and ask for some tips on what to read next!:)

Firmin - Sam Savage

I cannot tell you how much I loved this book. It tells the story of a rat living in a book shop, who eats his way through the novels, literally digesting knowledge, and becoming wonderfully wise, and clued up on all aspects of life. It is lovely.

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The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov

This is a much more intellectual kind of read. I read a lot of Russian literature from the late 1800s/early 1900s for my Comparative Lit course, and I really enjoyed it. This one I have only read once and will need to read again to properly understand and appreciate it, but even the first time round it totally captivated me. It explores religion and politics and human behaviour all in a really interesting way.

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Keeping Faith - Jodi Picoult

I'm a fan of Jodi Picoult's, I always find myself fascinated by her characters, and she tackles some really serious topics in a totally unpretentious way, which I love. This one, I read on holiday last year, and thought it was brilliant. It hasn't overtaken 19 Minutes as my favourite book of hers, but it's a close second. It explores how religious experience affects the non-religious when a single mum's young daughter starts talking to angels. I thought, even just in terms of exploring what it means to be a parent, this was a really good read.

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Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me - Mindy Kaling

Have you watched the American version of The Office? If so, then you'll recognise the genius that is Mindy Kaling as not only an executive producer, and writer, on the hit show, but also one of it's stars - she plays Kelly Kapoor. Anyway, this is a sort of autobiographical book, compiled of snippets of her life, her work, and her thoughts, and it is absolutely hilarious. She really reminds me of my best friend and me in terms of the things she discusses in this book, and her sarcastic tone, so it got a huge thumbs up from me.

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I'm halfway through Craig Ferguson's autobiography (American on Purpose) at the moment and I'm loving it! He grew up not far from where I live, so it's a really interesting read.

If you guys have any good recommendations (I'm hearing a lot of good things about Game of Thrones?) then let me know in the comments! What you been reading recently? :)

Hope you're all well, and look out for my next favourite youtube channels post, it'll be up later in the week :)

Lynsey xxx

My Favourite YouTubers - Sprinkle of Glitter

Hi guys and welcome the first in my 'My Favourite Youtubers' series! And what better person to start with than my all time favourite YouTuber (which is saying something given the fact that I'm currently subscribed to a whopping 137 channels... that is quite ludicrous, I realise...)

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Louise from Sprinkle of Glitter is honestly a little ray of sunshine in my day. Whether I've had an amazingly exciting day or a really horrible or boring one, watching Louise's videos is something that will never fail to put a smile on my face. Her beauty channel is one of the cheeriest places on the internet, and her positive attitude and brilliant sense of humour come across so well on camera. She posts beauty videos of all kinds, from hauls, to reviews to 'top tens', and her vlogs with her youtuber best friend Zoe (zoella280390) are amongst the most entertaining videos to ever appear in my subscriptions box. She and Zoe have recently set up an online shop called 'ShopLouella', so go and check that out here! I bought one of their gorgeous sets of bdellium brushes last week, so keep an eye out for a review - they are amazing!

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Her vlogs with her gorgeous baby girl Darcy, better known on youtube and her blog as Baby Glitter, are lovely to watch. She's such a doting mum and it's amazing, and a privilege to have watched Darcy grow from a tiny newborn to a gorgeous one year old with quite a personailty already!

I think what is so appealing about Louise is how down to earth she is. You feel like what you see is what you get with her - she's warm, funny and the fact she is so natural means you feel like you can really trust her opinion when she reviews products! Youtubers like Louise are the ones you feel like you know the best - which seems mad when you haven't ever met! - because she is so natural and chatty on camera.

So congratulations to Louise for the continually growing success of your youtube channel and blog (both of which I'll link below). It is so well deserved :)

http://www.youtube.com/user/Sprinkleofglitter/featured
http://sprinkleofglitter.blogspot.co.uk/

Lynsey xx

ps speaking of YouTube, don't forget to check out the wee channel I started last month, finally dipping my toe into the youtube beauty community pond :) http://www.youtube.com/user/lynseymacmakeup/featured

My Favourite YouTube Channels - Series

Hi guys! So I've been having a wee think about new 'features' I can have here on my blog, and since I'm a bit of a YouTube addict, I think I'm going to start a little 'Spotlight on a Youtube Channel' series! This is not limited to beauty channels - I'll include singer-songwriters, vloggers etc too! I'm constantly finding new YouTubers who I love to watch, and at times when there isn't much on TV that I'm watching (which thanks to my current weekend obsessions with The Voice and Once Upon a Time leaves my weekdays pretty television free!) YouTube pretty much becomes my TV! This is really just a little introduction, as my first post in this series will go up later today! So do leave a comment below if there are any particular channels you love to watch, and let me know why, I'm always on the lookout for new channels to add to my ever expanding subscriptions list :P

Lynsey xx