Top 12 of 2012

This year instead of doing my favourites for the entire year and having a winner for a whole slew of categories like I have done the last two years I decided to keep it short and sweet. Here are my favourites from the past 12 months!

1) Make Up For Ever Aqua Liner in Black Diamond or shade 7. Fantastic unique shade, iron-wear time, easy to apply and soft applicator. You can check out full reviews by clicking the names, but I love this liner.

2) Laura Mercier Oil-Free Tinted Moisturizer in my shade Porcelain. I like how light weight it is, the fact it doesn't cause my skin to go into melt-down mode and that it incluse SPF 20. An everyday staple for me. It's not perfect exactly but it's by far better than anything else I've tried.

3) Marcelle Hydra-C Ultra Thin Matifying Fluid. An everyday thing for me. Not only does this moisturizer have fantastic vitamins in it, it moisturizes well and keeps my skin matte all day long. It helps my skin heal itself faster than without and I never want to run out of this stuff.

4) Beaute Cosmetics Liqui-gel stain in Fever. I've not reviewed this yet but it really is a fantastic lip stain. Beautiful workable colour and long lasting. It has become my go to lip shade. Easy to leave as a slight tint or built up. Review to come soon hopefully!

5) Blinc Mascara. Yes, this is a tubing mascara in black but I must say tubing mascara changed my life. No flaking, no smudging, long lasting, cry-proof, sleep-proof, sweat-proof, pretty lashes. With my watery allergenic eyes this mascara has been a godsend.

6) Nars Penny Lane Blush This is such a fantastic everyday cream blush. The formula on it is fairly unique in that it's cream to powder and it's never sticky or greasy. A wonderful neutral on my pale skin it tends to go with everything. 

7) Nars Albatross Highlighter I only just received this but already I adore it. To be reviewed soon it's a wonderful glowy white-gold shade that when blended along the cheek bones creates the most stunning ethereal effect. My favourite highlighter yet!

8) Smashbox Intermix Bronzer/Blush

The only bronzer/blush I've ever used that has looked healthy and glowy on my fair skin rather than dirty. I honestly can't believe I haven't reviewed this! So subtle and perfect in the summer time. Now that I've realized my oversight it is in my review line-up!

9) Tarte Amazonian Clay Blush in Blissful

Another perfect summer shade! Gorgeous coral flush and it lasts so much longer than every other blush I've tried. Don't let the coloured plastic packaging fool you this is definetly a blush you can depend on.

10) Avene Clean-Ac Moisturizer

The best overnight moisturizer for my acne. Non-clogging, redness reducing and super hydrating the only downsides are the price and the fact it can feel a bit greasy in the morning. A miracle worker other than that though!

11) Haus of Gloi. This is for a company as Haus of Gloi has continued to impress me over the year whereas many other brands have fallen short. This vegan company always has consistently high quality products and amazing customer service. There Sugar scrub is a must for me in the shower and there perfumes are some of the only ones I've ever been able to wear and not have an allergic reaction too. Plus now they have an option were you can design your own personal perfume out of four notes among a list of options. Some of my favourites are Depravity, Hex, Brier Path, Litchi Milk Tea, Troika, Winter Divinity, Honeysuckle Lemon Curd, and Imp in no particular order. There pumpkin butter is an amazing moisturizing formula that is non-greasy and super moisturizing and like I mentioned there sugar scrub is my favourite scrub ever.

12) Indie Nail Polishes! (Special thanks to Pointless Cafe for permission for the photo use! P.S. this is Underhill from Hebridean Sprite Beauty) I'm sort of cheating with this one, but I fell in love with so many indie nail polishes this year and started my own small indie nail polish company so I didn't feel I could leave it out! Not only was Hebridean Sprite Beauty Nail Polishes a working of the past six months, I found some wonderful nail polishes this year. Ozotic 533, A England St. George, Ascalon and Dragon were all amazing and Cult Nails is still the maker of my go to top and base coats. Plus there are so many other stand-outs! If you like unique polishes the indie polish world really is the place to go to. I find they tend to be more creative than ordinary polish lines. 

Awesome Beaute Boxing Day Deal

Hey everyone! Just wanted to inform you of a great deal from Beaute cosmetics. 40% off right now with the code boxingweek2012 . I adore there liqui-gel stain in Fever and so I'm highly tempted to pick up another shade too at this lower price.

Beaute Cosmetics Here

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas if you celebrate it or if not, a relaxing and pleasant few days :D

Some Gifts for the Holidays

There are always cosmetics that seem to catch my attention that I add my list every year. This year has been harder than others in the past though as so many brands have changed their animal testing status to be able to sell in China. (Extremely frustrating as a cruelty-free beauty blogger and a big part of the reason I've not been blogging as much)

Anyways, here are some items that made the cut! Enjoy!

Hourglass Extreme Sheen Lip Gloss- Siren

This has been on my wishlist for over a year. Expensive but it looks so nice!

NARS Albatross Highlighting Blush

Another long time wishlist item. I love the colour and though again on the pricer side I've heard such good things about Nars blushes over the years it's something I've been eyeing too.

Guerlain Eye & Lip Calligraphy Palette

A beautiful sophisticated eye and lip palette from Guerlain. I'm a little sketchy on whether Guerlain is still non-animal testing though. I've heard both answers lately.

Fresh Sugar Addiction Mini Lip Collection

These fresh lip treatments are half-size but you get a large range of colours! Plus with that many you don't really need the full size anyway. I love value packs. :D

Tarte Amazon Escape Amazonian Clay Eye & Cheek Palette

If you haven't tried tarte's amazonian clay blushes, I highly recommend them. Highly pigmented, long wearing and nicely packaged. This set has two in it and some nice looking eyeshadows.

What about everyone else? What are you eyeing up for Christmas?

Hebridean Sprite Beauty Christmas Carol Collection

The Christmas Carol Collection!
L-R: Deck the Halls, Winter Wonderland, Hark! Angels Sing, O Christmas Tree, Reindeer Games

As many of you know I opened up my own small nail polish line in October. For the holiday season I wanted to add to the collection and I finally settled on 5 colours I think are not only festive but fairly non-denominational too despite their Christmas Carol names. I just wanted to show you all the pictures of them, and I apologize for some of the not so great photography. Certain colours *coughDecktheHallscough* refused adamantly to be photographed true to life.

Reindeer Games

Reindeer Games! Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer inspired. A warm chestnut brown with a hint of purple shimmer and Red hex glitters.

Deck the Halls

Deck the Halls, the most blatantly festive of the collection! A true red jelly with gold holographic hex glitter.

Hark! Angels Sing!

Hark! Angels Sing! Is a pretty warm gold with colour-changing etherealness to it. It goes from peachy-pink to gold to green. 

O Christmas Tree

O Christmas Tree, is slightly like Hark! Angels Sing in that it has a colour change to it. This mossy golden-green actually has a red shift to it as well as emerald green mini hex glitters. Like a whole Christmas Tree on the nails.

Winter Wonderland

Winter Wonderland. This polish was made with freshly fallen snow drifts in mind, bright and slightly shimmery with a hint of a blue tone at times and a deep blue when in shadow. I love the contrast of the two matte glitters here with the base and the sapphire holo glitters. So fun!

Winter Wonderland Manicure

And a not so great photograph of me wearing Winter Wonderland.

So what do you think? Do these put you in the spirit of the upcoming holidays?

Royal Vampire Nail Polish Manicure for Halloween

For those of you following the Hebridean Sprite Beauty shop on facebook you probably know I've been working on this Vampire inspired shade for a while now- about a month. First it was too dark, then too light then too opaque, then the subtle shimmer wouldn't show up on the nail, then it dried too matte. Finally I managed to get a shade that I'm happy with though I still need a topcoat for it in order to reach it's full potential I think. 

Anyways it's a dark bloody red jelly shade with a subtle regal purple shimmer that is only evident in some lights. Shown is with three coats and I'm loving it, especially for Halloween. I'm actually posting it today in the shop and it will be a part of the permanent mythological line if anyone is interested. I wanted to post it earlier but as you can tell from earlier I just wasn't happy with it yet.

Above you can see some evidence of the purple shimmer. It's much harder to catch on camera than I'd hoped it would be.

Strangely but kind of ironically in the bottle Royal Vampire looks like bottled half-dried blood as it has a weird brown tone to it. None of that tone really shows up on the nail though and the shimmer is much more prominent in the bottle. I have no clue as to why this is but I thought I'd mention it.

a shot of the shimmer

Looking like partially dried blood

Hope everyone has a lovely candy-filled Halloween this evening! Stay safe and have a blast!