Blog Wisdom

I have been reading blogs for years; it's only recently I felt that I too had something to say and share (you poor, poor people). Anyway to share the love for some of my favourite blogs, I thought I'd take a look back and see just what they've taught me:

First up: Beauty

I've always looked at other girls (and sometimes boys) and wondered how did they get their hair like that? Or how did they do their make-up that way?  Make-up and hair styling seemed to be an innate ability that I'd been born without. However, thanks to the blogosphere I have learnt the ability to:

1. Do the smokey eye: Shirley from Meek~N~Mild does the most amazing make-up tutorials (and fashion posts!) thanks to her I accomplished the smokey eye.

2. Do the cat eye flick: Keiko Lynn's tutorial allowed me to master this one!

Here

3. Contour my face: I had no idea about face contouring until I read/watched these amazing posts from The Beauty Department and Essie Button.

4. Wave my hair: For some reason I could never wave my hair without it looking awful. Turns out I was curling it the wrong way and pointing the tongs in the wrong direction! Thanks to See Creatures and Gembear I like to think my wavy hair ain't too shabby nowadays (don't even get me started on what it's like the rest of the time; stupid and temperamental should cover it).

Here

5. Fishtail braid: I always thought that the fishtail braid must be really time consuming and complicated. Not so! Check out The Beauty Department's tutorial

Why I couldn't ever get the gist of doing these things on my own I will never know, the main point is that I can now contour my face, do my eye-make-up and wave my hair to my hearts content (not all at the same time though...I'd love to see a blog teach me that!).

Tutorials I still need to try:

The sock bun which I saw on The Skinny Blonde Girl

Here

The hair turban which I saw on Mammal And Lamb

Here

Bloggers tutorials and reviews are second to none (in my opinion...I'll try not to get on my high horse too much) when it comes to new products and what women like me really want to know about in the world of beauty. Their reviews have lead me to some of my favourite beauty products (Liz Earle Hot Cloth Cleanser anyone?). Even if a bloggers post is sponsored; the blogger tends to still give their honest opinion. This means that I as a reader trust them and so I'm much more likely to purchase the product they're reviewing opposed to if I'd seen that product being reviewed in a magazine.

What beauty tips and techniques have you learnt from your favourite bloggers? Do you trust blog reviews more than magazine reviews?

Love
Madame Squirrel.

Korres Lip Butters

I suffer from really dry lips (dry skin in general in fact) and I've been looking for a nice lip balm that would moisturise and give some colour without being as high-maintenance as a lipstick, as sticky as a lip gloss or as staining as a lip stain. 

One product that I read about was on the blog gh0stparties; Kate is a beauty guru and she mentioned how much she loves Korres Wild Rose Lip Butter in this post. I was sold, it seemed to be everything I was looking for. I had a little googling sesh and found that the lip butters were generally thought highly of by other bloggers and were rated 4.2 out of 5 on makeupalley.com. 

What really sold them to me was that one of the colours they come in is Jasmine. I have an obsession with jasmine scented products especially this scented candle so I knew I had to try and get my mitts on the Jasmine lip butter. 

I expected the butters to be expensive; for some reason I associated Korres with pricey products but I was wrong! Korres products are affordable and as they try to use only natural and certified organic ingredients, they are a brand I'm looking forward to trying a lot more of. 

The lip butters only retail at £6.00 on feelunique.com. and after looking at swatches of the butters on other blogs (just type in 'korres lip butter swatches' into google to have a gander) I decided to purchase Jasmine and Mango. 

My lip butters arrived on Thursday and I love the simplistic packaging. I'm a weeny bit disappointed that the Jasmine colour doesn't smell at all like Jasmine but I forgive Korres for this as it is really moisturising with a lovely nude sheen. The Mango colour is gorgeous; I love the smell and it produces a smexy hint of coral orange when applied. 

Korres lip butters are made of a combination of shea butter and rice wax and are dermatologically tested as well as being free of mineral oil, silicone, propylene glycol and ethanolamine. The other lip butters (which I also have to get my mitts on) are pomegranate, wild rose, guava, plum and quince. 

I hope you enjoyed the story of my foray into lip butters. Does anyone else love Korres? Any suggestions to what other products of theirs I should try? 

Love 

Madame Squirrel.