Here's a roundup of my everyday beauty faves and things I reach for most! 
I like these posts when other people do them, so I thought I may aswell start now and then maybe I can start doing monthly favourites throughout 2014.


Sleek is definitely my favourite high street brand so I have three things from them I have been loving.

Sleek True Colour Lipstick, Matte in Exxxaggerate.  Even though it is purple, I wear it on an everyday basis and it is something I would definitely repurchase. It particularly compliments darker skin tones. Surprisingly for a purple toned lipstick it looks good with most outfits also! (here's a swatch to the left) click here to purchase

Sleek Shimmer Blush in Sunrise 924. £4.49 
Sleek recommend this for darker skin tones and I love how pigmented the colour is, although it is hard to capture without natural sunlight! (swatch to the right) It works really well as a bronze as it comes out as a dark blush. Also works well with the Sleek Contour kit for a glamorous look and I use it to make sure I have a healthy glow! click here to purchase. 


Sleek Face Contour Kit in Dark 886 £6.49 
This Contour Kit probably comes up on a lot of beauty guru's favourites!
A lot of people have this palette and at first I was sceptical but I have been converted. The pigment is perfect and I mainly use the Dark Contour powder as opposed to using the highlighter. I am still looking for a plain highlighter that doesn't have glitter, so if you have any suggestions please comment below! I think this kit will last me a long time, and it around £6 its great value as you only need one swift swipe to add some element to your face. click here



MAC Mineralise Skinfinish Natural in Dark Deep. £22 
This is 100% my Holy Grail face product. I Swear by it. Apply a small amount of top of foundation to set it and add a healthy glow, or use instead of foundation altogether and it is just as good! I use this as an everyday face product and I have repurchased it since I bought it the first time. it is a nice chocolately brown that gives you a healthy look!

MAC Matte Powder Blush in Raizin £18
Although it is quite expensive for a blush, you can really see the quality of it when applied , as the pigment is great and it applies nearly as condensed as a cream, but it is a powder! Meaning it will last a long time. It is a really nice undertone deep reddish brown, and compliments dark skin amazingly. available here





Remington Sleek and Smooth Wide Hair Straightener. £36.99
Best buy of the year! and at least 3 people I know have bought them since. The wide plate is especially good for my thick hair and they heat up super fast, they also come with a heat mat and can go up to over 200 degrees. The ceramic plates really make a difference as they slide through my hair without me feeling like its being singed! also the plates are kind of 'floating' so they move with your movements. I also curl with these and love how silky it makes my hair feel, especially after using a tiny bit of caster oil.

Maybelline Fit Me Concealer £5.99
I love to use this if I don't want to wear a full coverage foundation, it is quite heavy coverage so don't use it if you're prone to break out, but its great to use under the eyes and is a nice warm natural tone. What I like in particular is the doe foot applicator it comes with, so you can use it on the go.  find your shade here


MUA Undress Me Too Eyeshadow Palette £4 
This palette is perfect because it has the right mix of matte shadows and shimmery ones. It also has a great range of colours you can actually use together! it sounds obvious but its not always easy to find a palette where you can take just that with you if you're going away for a night out and you know you don't need anything else. Id describe it as a cheaper version of the Urban Decay Naked 2 Palette, it just costs 10 times less, (literally). click here 

Real Techniques Core Collection Brush Set £21.99
I had been wanting these brushes for so long but couldn't justify spending so much just on brushes! However it certainly works out better to buy the set, and you get the travel case that you can stand up as I've shown in the picture above. I'm so glad I went and got these as you can feel the quality every time! My favourite brush is the big buffing one, I use this for my foundation and the mineralise powder. and then the smaller round brush I use for my dark contour powder. The tiny thin brush I use to conceal my eyebrows, and the flat brush is just multipurpose for me, what I love about this set also, is that they are all different sizes so that you can use them for specific purposes. You can buy the set at boots as a lot of retailers sell the core collection brushes seperately . 

TRESemmé Keratin Smooth Restoring Shampoo and Conditioner £4.99 each
Keratin as you may know is for smoothing and straightening hair, I love to use this because it smells SO NICE! and you leaves my hair without tangles and so soft to the touch, I often think I haven't washed the conditioner out properly as it feels so soft. What I like most about these products is that they do what they say on the bottle and control frizz. Obviously when I wash my hair it is a huge afro bush but it is a controlled bush thanks to these shampoos!

Last but not least…..

Jergens Daily Moisturiser (around £2.99 depending on where you buy it)
I use so many different creams and body butters and could possibly moisturise a small country. However I prefer creams that I can use all over, and as I don't use scented creams on my face and I have dry spots in this area, I prefer to have one particularly for dry skin. This one feels really silky when you apply it so at first I didn't think it would work but it proved me wrong and leaves me nice and silky!

So thats all of my everyday favourites and the things I reach for most of the time. I may do a part two with things I have left out, or a 2013 worst products to review also. Hope this helped! Leave links to your favourites below! See you soon! xx





HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Everyone complains at this time of year about the cheesy reflective posts on Facebook and twitter, the photo collages and this year the flipagrams on instagram! But I really don't see what all the negativity is about. A new year only happens, of course, once a year. It's not about changing from the 31st of December and being a totally different person on the 1st January, but it is a good time to look back at the year before and it offers people a chance to start fresh…. Even if it is just another day. 


“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow,” – Albert Einstein





So here are my New Years Resolutions


  1. BUDGET! and spend wisely
  2. Pass my driving test some time this year
  3. To not wait on other people to do the things I want to do, (I'll just drag them along this year)
  4. To go on one big holiday abroad and one small trip ( even if it's in the UK)
  5. To not miss any more films at the cinema
  6. Eat healthy and eat fabulous food and expand my pallette 
  7. To get 100 followers on my blog and blog everyday!
  8. Go and see a show at the theatre 
  9. Go to a theme park
  10. Make more memories with friends and family 

Here's a few pics of my year so far.. 
The only resolution that is going well is the food!!


Last minute NYE outfit




Fulfilling resolution 10!

Fat cats with friends,

Rosemary and Mint Lamb Shank with Champ Potatoes and Buttered Greens
 

Blue Cheese and Garlic Mushroom Potato Skins


                     



To capture your moments in unique ways, why not sign up to Photobox today and automatically get  40 free prints straight to your door! 
You can also print your photos onto mugs, decor, tshirts and anything else you can think of to keep 2014 alive…

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What are your resolutions, Comment below! 







Since I am a bit of a product junkie, I am always watching youtube videos to find new products to fix all my makeup and hair woes. I have a very oily T zone, my nose in particular is so oily that I often avoid moisturising that area of my face. However underneath my eyes and the balls of my cheeks tends to be quite dry, so I have typical combination skin. It is really a pain when I want to wear full coverage foundation but don't want to risk it looking to shiny, thus I have always craved a matte look!

My most recent discovery is Milk of Magnesia (MoM). Many makeup addicts describe this as the best primer they have ever used as it lasts so long, keeps their face matte and works as a really good foundation base. 

When I went to purchase it, I didn't realise that it is actually used for upset stomachs and indigestion, so I'm pretty sure that all the shops I went in to look for it, think I have some sort of issue!!
By the time I got to the final store I told the sales assistant that I want to use it as a primer as many people have suggested it and the final look always looked fabulous, she seemed shocked as it really is a DIY approach, I don't know how this was discovered but I really suggest to buy it. 
I got mine in boots in the health/pharmacy section for £5, at first I thought it was quite expensive for what it was, but there is a lot in the bottle and the typical price for a primer can go up to a lot more than a fiver, with a lot less of the product. 

I have used it for the first time today, and I have to say that my skin looks dewy and refreshed and has kept my makeup in place throughout the day, I could have probably added a bit more to my nose as some shine is still coming through, but MoM dries with a white chalky residue (on darker skin) and this put me off using more! The chalky residue can be covered right over just like any primer and makes no difference to the outcome of the final look so next time I go all out with my make-up (which will be New Years Eve) 

Go and try it out and see for yourself, oh and always use the original, flavour the one that I've shown above. 


First year at university didn't prepare me at all. Starting second year was pretty much the same as the jump from Secondary School, to Sixth form and yep it hurt when I landed! The first two weeks involved constant partying…..



 

 

and yep, this is where I also crashed and burned. After working all summer, most of us came back with energy waiting to be unleashed on broad st. But a couple of weeks later, the assignments began, the group-work meetings started and the energy was gone!! I also have had 2 jobs already this term. One was following from the job I started in summer and I was lucky enough to get a transfer, but the pay was awful and it was boring, so I left for a Christmas temp job which has been fun, yet tiring and I haven't really been out since!

I have learnt a lot this term and have actually been so focused, working on a live brief for my uni's marketing Agency ran by students has made me realise that PR is really what I want to do! I also won an iPad mini this term and it really motivated me to keep working hard and maybe I can keep winning things yay! One of my assignments due in the new year is all about making a blog, and luckily enough I can use the one I have. I really hope to do well in this assignment, thus the reason I am going to start writing much more in depth posts and also turn Maya's world into more of a lifestyle blog, as inspired by The Londoner (I AM ADDICTED).

Living away from home truly gives you the space you need to find out things about your own personality, bad and good. One thing I have realised is that I can pretty much talk about anything, anytime, (all day long) so I want my blog to show this and show you a bit of Maya's World. In the New year I really hope to make something of my blog and get to at least 100 followers by the end of 2014. Working so many hours has made me feel drab and under the weather, so another thing I want to do is a wardrobe revamp, although every one of my friends has said the same thing!!


Currently… I am on the hunt for a year long Industrial Placement in the Advertising, Marketing and PR sector , particularly PR,  starting around June. so if you have any recommendations of where to apply, or if for some weird reason you want to employ me (PLEASE) get in touch!

Anyway, that was just a little post on what's to come on the blog and what I have been up too…. (evidently not much) Thanks for reading anyway and as usual…. follow me on bloglovin and I'll follow you back!









As you may well have heard, unless you live under a rock (or don't have twitter) M&S have issued a new policy that allows Muslim workers to refuse to serve customers wishing to purchase items that are prohibited in their religion. Although a spokesperson has made it clear that this policy also applies to Christian and Jewish workers, their is really only an uproar around the muslim staff. In the news, the emphasis has been placed on products such as Pork and Alcohol, two things that A LOT of religions do not encourage their followers eat. You'll find that Jews, Rastafarians and Seventh Day Adventists just to name a few, don't encourage the consumption of pork and I'm sure you'll already know that a lot of Hindu's, Sikhs, Buddhists and some small Christian groups (to name a few) are vegetarians altogether.

However, As usual the british media are intent on spreading Islamophobia and highlighting any cultural differences between your average roast pork loving, red wine drinking daily mail reader and any muslim person, british or not. It seems to me that the media are trying to make people look for their 'good old Britain', so of course we'll all love David Cameron for trying to tightening immigration laws and then the majority of Britian can enjoy their indian takeaway and fosters beer (originating from poland) in peace.

At the end of the day, Any person with common sense, who practises a religion such as Islam knows what kind of environment they are going to be in when applying for a job. Marks and Spencers, Asda and all other supermarkets will always sell alcohol and meat and retail workers will most likely have a job description when they start…. It would be unfair to assume that every religious worker wants these new policies as they could potentially cause them to be ostracised at work, or even have customers purposely avoid them...

Have M&S made a problem where there wasn't one?







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