London & IMATS Makeup Haul Plus a little Giveaway (Closed)!

I promise this will be the last London related post on here. I know I've been harping on about it since I came back but I seriously had so much stuff to write about. This post is going to be a Beauty Haul showing you guys what I picked up whilst I was in London. Looking at my purchases now I did buy quite a bit but I know that I'll actually use the stuff I bought which I know can't be said for some past purchases.

First off I'll show you what I got at IMATS! To be fair I didn't buy too much. I bought a couple of bits from Crown Brush, I seen so many good reviews on their brushes I knew I wanted to check them out. I bought two palettes, their 28 Nude Eyeshadow palette (which you can win, details below) and their 10 pan blush palette. I also picked up five of their brushes on the day, I'm not too sure what type of brush they are as they have no names. It's kind of annoying but who knows they could be amazing makeup brushes and redeem themselves. The total for these purchases came to £78 which I wasn't expecting. I think it's kinda pricey for what I got to be honest but other than that I'm happy with my purchases. My only other purchase at IMATS was Make Up Forever's HD Foundation, again a product I've heard tonnes about.  I made such a good saving on this product, at IMATS it was £20 but in Dublin it retails for in and around €38. I got it in the shade 117 which is the perfect match for me and so far I'm really happy with it. I don't think it would be a foundation I'd use on a day to day basis but definitely for special occasions. I haven't really tried too much from Make Up Forever as I feel its a bit on the pricier side of things over here. Who knows after trying this I may pick up some more bits from them really soon! 

When I seen Benefit's Matthew Williamson The Rich is Back palette online I knew I had to have it. We do have a huge Debenhams in town but with saving for London I decided to save my money and buy it when I got there. I do have a few Benefit palettes in my collection which are all fab but this one just caught my eye, I'm in love with the retro packaging. All the shadows in the palette are very wearable, I could even see myself using the turquoise shade over the Summer months too, I just hope we start getting the nice weather soon. This palette was £26.50 which I guess is a bit on the pricey side of things but I know I'll get so much use out of it. It's also Limited Edtion so I doubt it will stick around for long. When I was in Debenhams on Oxford Street they literally had three left in stock. I came upon the store Liberty by a complete accident when we got off the Tube. Of course I snuck in with Paddy for a few minutes to have a look around their Beauty Hall which is heaven! I bought two miniature Bumble and Bumble products, their Prep and Thickening Hairspray. I've never seen the mini products in Dublin so I decided to give them a go. I always find it better to go for the miniatures instead of the full size products as if I don't like something I know I won't have wasted a lot of money. Both of these products came to €12.50 which I thought was rather good! I haven't tried too much from the brand but so far I'm really impressed with these two products. I signed up for a store card while I was in the store, I have no idea why considering I'll never use it as I live in Dublin. Another brand we can't get our hands on in Dublin is KIKO Cosmetics. I popped into their store in Westfield Stratford and it was so busy as they had their Sale on. I haven't heard too much about this brand so I was looking forward to trying some bits. I bought two products that were in the Sale, the Sun Bronzing Blush and Long Lasting Stick Eyeshadow. I wasn't planning on buying the latter but the lovely Sales Assistant sold it too me at the til. They literally don't budge, I went for shade 28 which is a flesh toned. I think it will be great under a neutral eye. I also picked up KIKO's Night Balm which is a nourishing treatment for the lips. Mine have been extremely dry lately so I'm hoping it works magic! All three products came to £16.20 which didn't break the bank. If I end up liking these goodies I'll definitely pick up some more bits the next time I'm in London.

The only other shop I went to in Westfield Stratford was of course, Victoria's Secret! Here in Ireland we always seem to be the last to get big name stores opened on our shores so I couldn't wait to pop in and have a shop around. I ended up buying just beauty products, their beauty section is huge! There was so much choose from, I literally loved nearly every scent I tried. I finally decided on their Lemon Escape Gift Set and Love Spell Fragrance Mist. All of these products smell amazing! The minute I sprayed Lemon Escape Paddy insisted that I bought the fragrance. I think it was probably his favourite scent in the whole shop. I decided to go for the set as you get the body spray, body lotion and shower gel housed in a gorgeous makeup bag. Lets be honest here I did fall in love with the makeup bag just a little so that probably played a big part in my final decision. I was also drawn towards their Love Spell Fragrance Mist, it has a gorgeous peachy scent! Plus it comes in purple packaging which is indeed my favourite. For daytime I do love fragrance mists as opposed to perfumes over the Summer as they are much lighter on the skin. Lastly in Stansted Airport I picked up the Rockin' Body Perfecting Cream. This was one of those "Getting Rid of my Sterling need to buy Stuff" purchases. Lets be honest we all have them when we go on holidays. I was really surprised that the Victoria's Secret in the Airport stocked so much considering it was the size of a shoe. This came to £10.83, not a 100% sure how much it actually is in stores. Again this smells really nice , it's basically a body illuminator which I think will look rather nice over tan.

Paddy bought me some bits and bobs while we were in London. He picked me up this gorgeous Beatles Abbey Road teddy which is so cute. I have a couple of teddys from when I was younger with badges/pins from different countries my family and I have visited. Whenever people go away they always bring me back a couple. As you can see I've already stuck a couple of London badges on there. I'm actually scared to count the amount of badges/pins I have as there are so many. Paddy also got me two books, The Devil Wears Prada and the new sequel, Revenge Wears Prada. I've heard so much about the original book so I can't wait to give these two books a read very soon.

Now for the giveaway, I was quite lucky to have been able to buy quite a bit whilst I was in London last weekend. Thank god I checked in a bag or I wouldn't have been able to bring any of it home. Saying that my suitcase was nearly over the 15KG limit which I was indeed stressing out about all morning! I've decided to give away the lovely Crown Brush 28 Neutral Colour palette which you can see in the first picture on this post. Of course I opened it to show you guys what its like in person but I haven't touched any of the shadows! If like me you love neutral shadows this will definitely be up your street. I do love it myself but I do have quite a few neutral palettes already and I thought it would be nice to give it away to one of my lovely readers!!

Entering this giveway is simple as I don't want to go down the route of a million rules and such.

Here's what you have to do!

Follow All-Made-Up on Bloglovin' which you can do here , let me know in the comments if you have done so.

For an extra entry you can tweet - I've just entered @AllMadeUp21 International Giveway for a Crown Brush 28 Neutral Eyeshadow palette #bbloggers

Lastly comment on this post telling me what your favourite beauty products are for the Summer months.

Closing Date - Sunday 7th July @ Midnight. Winner will be notified on Twitter

Worldwide Giveaway (wherever I can send post too!)

UPDATE - The winner of the Crown Brush 28 Nude Palette is Chloe ! Congrats!

That's all you have to do guys easy peasy! I really hope you enjoyed my London/IMATS Haul, if you where at IMATS too I'd love to see what lovely beauty products you picked up.

Laura<3

IMATS London 2013

 It's hard to believe that this time last week I was in London! Time seriously goes way too fast when your on holidays, I had such an amazing trip whilst I was there which you can read all about here. Three days definitely didn't give me enough time to explore this lively city so I'm hoping to pop back towards the end of the year. The main reason behind my trip to London last week was to attend the much talked about IMATS. Having never been before I didn't know what to expect. I was lucky enough to have a Press Pass for Saturday and Sunday, in the end I decided to go on Saturday as I was going to be visiting Paddy's Sister on Sunday.

As I was staying in the Holiday Inn Express in Stratford, East London, it was nowhere near Kensington where IMATS was taking place. I should really look up Google Maps in the future before I book hotel! The location of our hotel didn't really bother us at all, I found that we saw more of London this way. We had an early start on Saturday morning as I wanted to get to IMATS early before the crowds. I was so glad Paddy was there to keep me company as I didn't realise how packed the tubes get, I have to admit I was a bit overwhelmed. Two long train rides later we were in Kensington, we did get off the wrong stop and ended up walking 40 mins to the venue. I seriously don't know how we got it so wrong but we did find our way in the end.

After collecting my Press Pass at the door, I headed inside to check out all the exhibitors. I had a couple of places e.g Crown Brush & Make Up Forever etc. that I wanted to go to first. Even though I didn't want to splurge on the day I did end up spending more money than I expected. I shouldn't of been too surprised as this seems to always be the case lately. The queues for some exhibitors e.g NYX, MAC Pro, Nars etc. were unreal. Instead of wasting my time queuing up for an age, I decided to have a wander around the venue itself. The special effects makeup on show was amazing! I did get quite a fright when I saw a huge monster on stilts started running towards me and started touching my hair with giant claws. Doubt I'm going to forget that anytime soon! I caught a bit of Bobbie Weiner's demonstration on how to create zombie skin. She was such a great speaker and the two looks she created were super spooky and would be perfect for Halloween. Of course she made it look so easy, I doubt I'd be able to recreate it myself. If you haven't heard of Bobbie Weiner before, her work has appeared in a number of Broadway shows and blockbuster movies such as Titanic, Shooter, Wicked and Behind Enemy Lines to name but a few. I seriously enjoyed her talk, it was so interesting and I took a lot away from it. On the day I met up with two lovely bloggers Jade from The Beauty Butterfly and Joanna from Minty Essence, it was so nice to finally meet them after reading both of their blogs for so long. Jade also helped me pick out the perfect shade of Make Up Forever's HD Foundation which ended up being the perfect match for my skintone. I've been using it a lot since I bought it!

We left just before 2pm as I was shopped out plus I was way too warm. Paddy and I headed for a bite to eat in Pizza Express, lots of IMATS attendees must of had the same idea as it was so busy!! All in all three hours gave me enough time to see all I wanted to see at IMATS. I picked up a good few bargains which you'll see in my London Beauty Haul post which is coming soon! The only thing I'd probably do differently next year is book a Central hotel. Not that I minded too much this time around but it definitely would have made things easier. If your planning on visiting IMATS yourself in the future, I'd recommend going early on Saturday to beat the crowds. It starts getting really busy after the 12 o'clock mark. I'd also write down a list of what exhibitors you want to check out on the day, also don't forget to pick up a floor plan map at the door as you want to know where the booths are that you want to check out. Lastly THINK before you BUY! I know there are fabulous discounts at IMATS and I usually go wild myself in this sort of situation. However I did find myself stepping back and thinking before I bought certain products while I was there. I'm pretty happy with the majority of the purchases I made on the day, one or two things were products that I may not of needed seeing as I have plenty of eyeshadows at home.

I hope you enjoyed this insight into my time at IMATS! I'm pretty sure I took enough pictures so you guys could join in on the experience. I'd love to know if you have been to IMATS before and what you enjoyed.

Laura<3

My London Adventure!

I'm back from London!!

I arrived home yesterday after an amazing weekend in this lovely city. I seriously can't believe it took me so long to visit and I won't leave it too long until I fly back over again. I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express in Stratford which is in East London. It was a bit out of the way but once Paddy and I got our heads around the Tube Map, it wasn't a problem to travel around. I've never been on anything like the London Underground, the Luas over here does not compare in the slightest. It gets so unbelievably busy lets just say I'm glad I'm not claustrophobic! The Olympic Stadium was right beside our hotel plus Westfield Stratford which is huge, we didn't even get to see all the shops in there. I doubt that centre is ever quiet, we went by the place at 11pm on the night we arrived and it was still buzzing with people.

On Saturday we went to IMATS which was a bit of a trek away from Strafford . We did a hell of a lot of walking on this trip! IMATS was really good and I was delighted I took the time to go over to London for the weekend to attend. I'm going to pop up a overview of the day on here soon. Later on in the day we took another train to Green Park to check out Buckingham Palace. After walking through a bit of Hyde Park, I wasn't expecting it to come out of nowhere like it did. The weather wasn't the nicest on the day so we didn't stick around for too long before stopping by Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.

A trip to Hampton Court was on the cards on Sunday where we visited Paddy's Sister. The weather was gorgeous which was a definite plus. We spent the day at Hampton Court Palace which I absolutely loved. There's so much history there and I found the place really interesting. We didn't get to do the whole tour, the place is huge and you'd have to take a full day to do it! The palace gardens are beautiful, seeing as it's June all the flowers were out in full bloom. They even have concerts there, Cliff Richard was playing that evening after we left. If only it was a singer we were remotely interested in. I know my Nanna would of loved him!

Before our flight home on Monday we woke up bright and early. First off we headed to Oxford Street where I stumbled upon Liberty unexpectedly and of course popped in for a bit. I didn't spend too much time on Oxford just because I wanted to fit as much into my last day as possible. Our second port of call was the British Museum, definitely a place that I'd recommend visiting if your ever in London. It's free in and there's so much too see, it's more impressive than some of the museums we have over here. Paddy is big into Ancient Egypt so we spent most of the time looking at that exhibit.

Of course the trip wouldn't have been complete without doing some shopping and I did a lot. I'll put up a haul post in the coming days. All in all I really enjoyed London and I'm already hoping to go back later this year. You definitely need more than three days to see everything. There's so much more I want to see like the Tower of London and Madame Tussauds. We tried to visit the latter on Monday but the queue was enormous and we were a bit pushed for time with our flight leaving that evening. I spotted the Sherlock Holmes statue when we were walking to the Tube though so of course I had to get a picture with that.

Are you guys heading off anywhere nice over the Summer?

Laura<3

London Calling!

Tomorrow I'm heading to London for the weekend for IMATS. The time has seriously flown by, I remember mentioning it on my blog a while back and I can't believe it's here already. I've never been to London before, it will only be my fourth time visiting the UK. I've been to Manchester three times to visit the Paddy's family, for concerts and of course shopping! It's one of my favourite cities, the people are lovely and there is so much to do. I'm definitely going to take a trip back there during the Summer and maybe take in a United game which I know will make the boyfriend happy indeed.

I'm flying over to London tomorrow evening with Paddy. He won't be coming along to IMATS with me but if you see him in Kensington on Saturday definitely say Hi. I was going to fly over on just for the day with the sole purpose of attending IMATS and go home that night. After checking out the flights Paddy and I decided to make a weekend out of it so we're having a little holiday too. I'm just taking a break from packing my bags and its a definite fail so far. I got this lovely Benefit Cosmetics Passport cover in Brown Thomas. The lovely sales assistant gave it to me when I bought one of their amazing Creaseless Cream Eyeshadows. I love the new packaging in their new colour range, it's so pretty! I know I'm only going for a weekend  but I also seem to overpack. This always seems to be the case for every holiday I go on. Does this happen to anyone else?

Being my first time at IMATS I don't know what to expect. I got a Press pass for the weekend so you'll definitely see some coverage on here in the coming weeks as well as posts on what I go up to in London. I'm sure I'll be taking a lot of picture whilst I'm there! Have any of you been to IMATS before? I'd love to hear what you thought of it. I'm really looking forward to checking out all the exhibitor stands, I know I'll definitely pick up some products from NYX and Make Up Forever. I love NYX blushes and lipglosses so I want to pick up a few more shades. I also want to listen to some of the Keynote speakers on the day, I always find these sort of talks really interesting and informative. The talk being given by Ruth Crilly and Caroline Hirons on The Power of Social Media sounds really great so I'll be sticking around for that. I'm looking forward to meeting some of you beauty bloggers too, if you see me on the day come say Hi. I'm meeting up with Jade from Beauty Butterfly on the day. I love her blog so if you haven't checked it out already go do it!

There's so many places I want to visit whilst I'm in London, I've gotten so many great suggestions from you guys already. I'm going to have fun trying to fit everything into four days. Considering that my flight departs Dublin Airport on Friday evening it really only leaves me with three days but I'm not going to think about that. On Sunday I'm going on a boat trip along the River Thames with my boyfriend and his Sister which I'm really exciting. I'm hoping that the weather forecast is good for over the weekend. I better get back to packing or I don't think I'm ever going to get it done. I literally dug out my suitcase yesterday and clearly no one has used it since I went to Manchester last year, it's seriously dusty!

What are your favourite spots to visit in London? I'd love to hear them!

Laura<3