Manchester haul and Mum’s birthday present!

Hey my lovelies,

So it was my mum’s birthday back at the end of December, and I got her two tickets for Cats at the Manchester Opera House. Naturally she took me along with her, and so off to Manchester we went on Saturday!

Cats was… well it was kinda weird. I’m still trying to figure out what happened at the end – have any of you seen Cats before and can shed some light on the topic for me? It was quite odd, but I did enjoy myself. The musical was pretty dance heavy and the actors were great!

We also went into the city earlier in the day, did some shopping, and grabbed some food before the show! So I thought I’d show you a little of what I purchased!

Selfridges:

Our first stop was Selfridges Beauty Hall: A.K.A Mecca. Stepping into this giant room full of every high quality makeup and beauty brand you can think of is a little overwhelming and amazing at the same time, and I think I showed a lot of self restraint in only buying three items total!

First I went to the YSL counter to purchase something I had been looking forward to ever since they were announced: a Touche Eclat Neutralizer. I’m using a redness correcting primer at the moment and am really into the whole colour correcting thing! I picked up the green coloured one for correcting redness and was told it was the last one and they’d only just come in! Although I’ve only used it once so far, i’m so happy with how it works (Full review to come soon if you’d like?) If you’re looking at buying one of these, they’re £25.50 each. 

Second, I went to my favourite brand: Clinique. I joined the reward programme at Clinique at Selfridges so every time you visit and buy 2 items, you get a stamp on your card. 3,5 and 7 stamps and you get a gift! I just got my second, so next time I go in i’ll get myself a snazzy gift. If anyone is interested, go look up Clinique By Invitation.

Onto what I purchased: Firstly, I’m almost out of foundation, so I decided to try something new: Clinique’s new Beyond Perfecting 2-in-1 foundation and concealer. It’s fab that they do a 2-in-1 product like this, it means when travelling you only need to take the one product! I got colour matched in store (very important to do this!) and was matched to the shade Breeze. Clinique do lots of different shades of this so you’re bound to find one that matches you no matter your skin tone! Breeze looks really really pale on the website, but it does oxidise a little so looks a bit darker on your skin than it seems. It comes with a cute doe foot applicator for ease of use which I love! Anyway, I’ve said before that I stick to the Superbalanced foundation, but i’m giving this one a try and am pretty excited about it! Clinique Beyond Perfecting foundation is £25.00.

I also purchased a new Chubby Stick highlighter. I was drawn to this right away as I’m liking the new glow-ey trend that’s happening at the moment, and this looked so easy to use and a great highlight colour! I tried it today for the first time and am pretty impressed with is so far, it’s a really buildable shimmer so you can look as glowy as you want. So simple to use too, just swipe on and blend with your fingertips! Not a cheap product though, as £19.

Yankee Candle

The next stop on out shopping trip was the Yankee Candle shop. My mum needed to go in to pick up a gift for a friend, and I can’t go in yankee without buying some candles because I love candles! I picked up two boxes of tealights, both £6.99 in the scents Lemongrass and Ginger, which is a really fruity scent, lemony without smelling like bleach or cleaning product, which is hard to do, and Fireside Treats, which are a gorgeous, sweet marshmallow scent with a hint of burnt sugar in there, just as if you were roasting marshmallows on a fire, and they’re fantastic!

The Range

We also went to The Range, which is a store that sells all sorts of home bits and bobs (bedding, kitchenwares etc.) and I picked up a few things there. They were real bargains so I couldn’t not buy them!

What I bought: Some candles (vanilla scented and tropical berry scented) The tropical berry one smells really amazing and I would have bought more if I could have carried them! I also bought a white fake hydrangea plant for my windowsill – hydrangeas are my favourite flowers and I though this was super cute! Also I picked up some fairy lights for my room!

 

Boots

I always end up in boots on every shopping trip, and always manage to buy a couple of things! I’ve been really into pastel nails at the moment, and I love the colours that this brand does, so I bought a couple of Barry M Pastel nail polishes in Kiss Me Quick (pink) and Sky Blue. These were £2.99 each so a real bargain! I also picked up the new mascara from Maybelline – The Falsies Push-up Drama mascara. This was £6 on offer, and I like trying out new mascaras, so I’ll give this a try really soon. The bristles seem really short on the wand, so it may need a little work to get the volume I want, but I’ll be using and reviewing this one soon! Maybelline tend to do really well with mascaras, their Lash Sensational mascara is one of my faves right now, so I have high hopes for this!

New Look

I don’t generally post about the clothes I buy on this blog, but as this is a haul post, I decided to add these in! I picked up a couple of lovely things from new look as well! I bought a lovely peach coloured top with a lovely sort of broderie anglaise cutout along the hem. I also picked out a gorgeous navy blue midi skirt with stripes, as I love the nautical theme and it should be great for when the weather gets a little warmer. The top cost £14.99 and the skirt was £24.99.

 

And that’s all I bought from our little shopping trip.

Afterwards, Mum and I went for a well deserved Nando’s (If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll have seen the deliciousness!) and we had a little time left over, so we went for cocktails over at a place called All Star Lanes nearby the theatre, which if you haven’t heard of it, is a fab little bowling/restaurant/cocktail bar that I really like! Again, you can see this on Instagram!)

So that’s it for this post!

Let me know down in the comments if you’ve bought or tried anything in this post before, or if there’s anything you recommend for me to try! Also If there’s anything in here (or anything at all) you want me to write more in depth about, let me know! (I’m planning on doing reviews for the Highlighter and the Touche Eclat if you guys want to see that). Most of all, please let me know if you’ve seen Cats, because i’d really like some insight on what happened there at the end (i’m still confused).

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Ciao for now,