ORLANDO HAUL!

10th July 2016

If you read my blog post a couple of weeks back, you’ll know all about my trip to the sunshine state. Now you can’t fail to think of the shopping opportunities when you have a trip to the USA planned and this was certainly the case when I knew we were going to Orlando. I’ll admit I scoured reviews and websites way beforehand, compiling a list of exactly the sorts of things I wanted or was looking for. Now I’ve been back a little while (sob), I’ve put together a post of everything I ended up purchasing, just for you!

HARRY POTTER

You might remember the big Harry Potter haul I did last year. I’m afraid you might be disappointed in me this year as I only ended up coming away with one thing! I was searching for Hermione’s Time Turner necklace which I had seen last time but unfortunately could not find it! While there are lots of wonderful things, they do admittedly cost quite a bit of money and there was nothing I wanted desperately enough to spend too much. Instead I headed for Honeydukes sweet shop and came away with this box of Peppermint Toads. It’ll look perfect on my little Harry Potter display in our house although I can’t decide whether to actually eat them or not…what do you think?

YANKEE CANDLES

There are a few outlet parks in Orlando and having visited this particular one last year, I knew there was one shop I needed to visit! If you didn’t know already, I am a big Yankee Candle fan and being an american product, they aren’t the cheapest and frankly you don’t get that much choice. This was why I made a beeline straight for the Yankee Candle shop in the outlet park, my sister close behind me. Offering six large candles for only $60, we decide to split it in half and get three each! Now the choosing was the difficult part! Think of a smell and they have it there! Leather and Churned Ice Cream were just two of the more peculiar flavours. After a good 20 minutes of wandering round, pulling jars off shelves and pulling it to my nose, I finally settled on my three candles. I went with Berry Colada, Island Cooler and Pineapple. I’m not even going to pretend I’m any good with describing scents but just know that all three smell absolutely delicious, quite sugary sweet. I seem to have gone for a summery beverage feel, which I am more than ok with!

SEPHORA

Oh Sephora. The mothership to every beauty blogger. I last stepped foot in a Sephora (okay, about four times) when I was in New York and admittedly, I spent a lot of money. This time, I was armed with my list and a lot stricter with myself. Since starting blogging, I have acquired lot of make-up and I just can’t justify buying yet another lip product in a shade I already have. You might remember how much I adore my Too Faced Natural palette and what’s the most famous TF palette of all? You got it! The Chocolate Bar palette. So it was this I first picked up.

I probably don’t really need to talk to you much about Chocolate Bar, after all, it’s been around for quite a while in the Bloggersphere! But to run dow: you’ve got sixteen matte and shimmer shades which ranges from natural browns to delicate pinks. The major selling point of the palette is that the shadows are infused with cocoa powder and as soon as you open the (chocolate bar themed) palette, you are enveloped by the silky smell of milk chocolate. Oh it’s just so hard not to eat! I’ve used this palette about five times now and I’m loving what I see. You get great colour pay off as is pretty standard with Too Faced and there are so many possible look for you to create. It comes with it’s handy ‘Glamour Guide’ as with all the eye palettes which points you in the right direction of where to start. If I’m honest, someone like me needs these, so these are a real blessing for a novice.

While things are definitely looking good for the chocolate bar palette, as usual I want to wait a few weeks longer to test it out and give you a full, balanced review.

Next up was the Kat Von D counter. Admittedly, I don’t actually know who she is (I want to say a tattoo artist!?) but I’ve heard a lot about her Everlasting Liquid lipsticks and I was pleased to see they had a good chunk of the colours in stock (unlike you, New York Sephora!). I couldn’t not go for a Lolita, but chose to go for the second as I prefer the colour a lot more to the first. Admittedly, since getting this colour home I have now decided I absolutely hate the colour! I don’t know what it is (but my sister who got the first Lolita completely agrees) but it looks completely different on your lips than when you swatch it. I understand this is common sense to a degree but you expect some consistency in colour between the two and on my lips it just look s a horrible, sludgy brown. Thankfully, I’ve had a lot more success with Lovesick, which is a much more comfortable mauve pink shade. So for now, I have forgiven you Kat Von D! While I fell out massively with Lolita, I can’t deny that these liquid lipsticks are really full coverage and long lasting to boot. And when you ~~eventually~~ get the right colour, what more could you want?

MAC

Whenever I head into a MAC store, I always head straight for the lipsticks. However, after picking up SEVEN different lipsticks which I liked the look of and finding out I already had them all, I decided it was probably time to step away from the lipstick! I’d heard great things about the pigments and having really been enjoying playing with what I put on my eyelids, I decided to have a swatching session and left with ‘Tan’ which is a pinky-brown bronze. I’ve never actually used a pigment before but the pigmentation is (obviously) incredible so I’m really hoping this will be the start of a lovely new relationship!

Upon revisiting Sephora, I also picked up another bottle of Urban Decay’s setting spray from Sephora. I don’t like how expensive it is, but oh man, I cannot deny how incredibly well it works! I’ve tried other drug store alternatives but I have just not had the same success rate. I never used my UD spray every day because of how pricey it was and I wanted to make it last, but the days I did, my make-up stayed in place so much longer so there was no excuse not to repurchase this magic little spray.

Having spent so much money previously in Sephora, I (shamefully) had enough points to redeem them for a little gift. I went with the Smashbox Photo Finish primer oil, something that intrigued me more than anything. Admittedly, you feel a bit flustered when you are asked what you would like but the choices were between that and a nail polish or moisturiser and hell knows I have a lot of them already! Anyway, it’s essentially a facial oil infused with plant oils to help keep your make-up on. I find this a little strange to use as a primer, purely because I am just so used to using creams but I’m always happy to try something new, especially when it keeps my face intact for that bit longer.

While queuing to pay, I couldn’t help but pick up the invisibobble, known as the ‘knights in spiral armour.’ Invisibobble is a traceless hair bobble that promises to erradicate kinks and split ends as well as headaches although this isn’t something I’ve actually ever suffered with myself as a result of a hairband. It supposedly doesn’t tangle with wet or dry hair but I’m not sure this is totally true having used it my self. That said, I do really like the idea of this so I hope I’ll have good things to report back!

DISNEY CHRISTMAS BAUBLE

My family and I absoloutely adore Disney Springs, which is an outdoor complex for shopping and dining. There is lots of outdoor entertainment to enjoy such as musicians and SO MANY SHOPS. From fashion to beauty, ice cream to flip flops, they really do have it all. They even have a Christmas shop that is open all year round and this is where my last item came from! Although it feels ever so slightly wrong, you can’t help but get lost in the sheer amount of amazing Christmas decorations you can get! Think of your favourite disney film and you’ll find a whole host of decorations themed to that film. Matt very kindly offered to buy us one and I was given the (very hard!) task of picking a bauble for our tree. I cannot explain how difficult it is to pick something, there is just so much choice! My favourite disney film is The Little Mermaid but it was actually a Alice in Wonderland bauble I went with. It was in the shape of a teapot and inside was a little Alice.

Now here comes the sad part. Before I could start taking photos of said beautiful bauble, I came downstairs one morning to find the (heavily wrapped) package on the floor and Luna looking guiltily up at me. My worst fears were confirmed when I carefully unwrapped the package to find my lovely new bauble smashed! Having been left on the table the night before, I can only deduct that Luna decided it looked awfully fun to play with, hopped up onto my table (we have had words, don’t worry!) and knocked it to the floor. You can see photos of the bauble here. While I’m very glad no glass escaped the wrapping to hurt her little paws, I can’t help but be so disappointed that my little memento is no more!

BB8 DOG TOY

Yes, you read correctly! It didn’t feel right to not bring Luna a little something home, especially when she had been left at home with my Mum! (Although admittedly, considering the above, I did reconsider for a moment!) Matt loves his Star Wars and naturally picked up this sweet little BB8 (yes, I had to google to check the name!) dog toy. It felt really sturdy but as soon as Luna got her her little mitts on it, she had ripped of the poor things head of! Nonetheless, his body is still rolling around…somewhere!

Despite a few mishaps, overall I’m pleased with my picks from Orlando. There will always be so many things you lust after in America but at the end of the day, for me it’s all about the experience of visiting the place. After all, no lipstick will come close to the memories.

Emily>

"BEHIND THE SCENES OF KRISPY KREME!"

"NYX LAUNCH AND BENEFIT BROWS"

ORLANDO HAUL!

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