Merry & Bright December BirchBox

Christmas is literally next week and if you are like me, who isn't quite ready but is sick of buying for other people. Birchbox came at quite possibly the right time. And once again BirchBox hasn't let us down with not only one of the cutest boxes ever that can be used a storage after; but inside the items I received are brilliant all from five wonderful brands.

Whats in My 'Bruges' Bag & Discount Code

Every girl loves a good bag right? Something comfy to hold, looks good and well we want all of that for a cheap as possible. What if I told you, you can get all of that and also bag that looks like designer handbags at a fraction at the price?! Stick with me and you can get your own bag with a cheeky little discount. A perfect present for Christmas or for yourself and of course have a nosey at what I keep in my bag!

Joan Collins Timeless Beauty* & Giveaway

When I think of Joan Collins, I think of glam, old Hollywood and everything in between. So when her Timeless Beauty range was launched, to see the black packaging with gold writing to me screamed glam. Everything ranging from lipsticks to bath products, Joan has really got you covered when it comes to everything beauty related. I have been lucky enough to try a few of her products and to be fully honest, I was so excited! Stay tuned till the end too as there is a little something for you too!

November 2016 Favourites

Okay, so hands up who pressed the fast forward button on 2016?! How the actual hell is it December already... Although November was an excellent month, you can read all about that in my Hello December post. In November though I was loving loads of items, it was really hard to narrow it down; I could have easily picked 10+ times this month but that is a little excessive. So here are my top 5 items of November.

Hello December '16

Image Source

Chapter 12 of 12, here we go the final bit; lets make it magical and wonderful as the adverts!

November '16 Empties

I am currently getting through my stash quicker than I can do these posts. So I apologie if it seems like I am going to be doing a lot of empties posts coming up. I just wanna get rid of it all! In the chilly month of November I have used up these little beauties.

Makeup Obsession - Luxe Rose Gold Palette

Could this makeup brand be anymore perfectly named?! Now I don't need to tell you that I am obsessed with makeup, that should be a given with me owning this blog. But when I heard that the TAM Beauty group were making a new makeup brand, I got so excited. I am a MASSIVE fan of Makeup Revolution and Freedom Makeup so knowing they were launching a create your own palette that could be engraved if you wanted it to be was well, beyond exciting.

November '16 BirchBox - Tatler

Another month another BirchBox and this month they have teamed up with the magazine Tatler, which is a stunning magazine, full of fashion to die for, jewellery to drool over and beauty items to add to your wish list. And this doesn't stop when it comes to collaborating with BirchBox, because just look at that box design. Who can resist a peacock feather design? All of the contents in this box is to help you through the party season, safe to say I had high hopes for this box.

Mac Mehr Dupe

I am a lover of dupes and when I find one myself, well of course I want to show it off and scream from the rooftops. This find was purely accidental, when I received my BirchBox from October I had a full size Lord & Berry Maxi Matte Crayon in Intimacy, straight up I knew I loved the shade but imagine my surprise when I used it. As soon as I applied it I knew it reminded me of a lipstick shade that I already had in my stash. Mac Mehr. Which is actually one of my all time favourite Mac shade, if you haven't tried Mehr I would highly recommend popping by your local Mac counter and giving it a little swatchy swatch. 

Top 3 Highlighters

 

I love highlighters, it's almost a love affair with how much I love them.  I love nothing more than carving out cheeks with my contour and then making my cheek bones pop with glitter and shimmer. I think I own around eight highlighters but in this post I am going to talk about my top three.

Morning Pick Me Up*

Sadly I am no longer in that skin bracket of "young skin", it pains me to say that. I officially have ageing skin, even if I am yet to see a wrinkle on my face. I have certainly seen a difference in my skin, I have gone from dry skin to oily skin but with dry patches in certain parts. It's also clutching onto its youth with the odd breakout now and again.

Ideally I should be doing a full skincare routine morning and night with the works; cleaners, toner, eye cream and finishing it off with a moisturising anti-age cream. But alas I am lazy and will use anything that is going to save me time. If I told you, you could just spray anti-ageing onto your face would you believe me?

Current Shower Time Favourites

 

By self admittance I am a bath girl through and through, but I detest washing my hair in the bath so this is when a shower is needed. But then like magic I turn into a shower princess and spend like 20 minutes singing along to my Spotify play list and getting done what needs to be done. 

Hello November '16

Autumn is finally here and quite a lot has happened and is going to happen!

October '16 Favourites

 

October has been a month of rediscoveries. I have tried to move my makeup around a little and I have found a few items that I completely forgot I had and also rekindled my love for a couple of items. 

My Favourite Films

Lets have a little step back from beauty today and chill. Nothing better than chilling out with your favourite film, in bed with a cuppa. Even better if you have someone else to cuddle up too, pets included. I am a massive fan of films, I can't think of anything better than getting curled up in bed and just forgetting reality for a while. In this post I am going to talk about my favourite films and why I love them so much.

Keeping Lush Fresh

You should know by now that I love Lush, but there is nothing worse than your bath bomb not doing what it should. When it hardly fizzes and just sinks to the bottom of your bath tub. We all dream of that perfect Instagramable bath art image that is going to get all the likes. But how do you keep Lush products are fresh as possible?!

Tickled Pink & Diet Coke

Did you know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month? No me neither. I had seen many of my favourite brands changing their packaging into limited edition pink packaging. For example Jo Malone adds a cute little pink ribbon onto her perfume bottles, Origins completely changes its normal green packaging for the Drink Up Intensive face mask into a white and pink design and also GHD have brought out some amazing fuchsia pink straighteners and hair dryer. But do this products cost you more? Nope, the companies just donate so much of the proceeds to Breast Cancer charities.

Amazing right?! But I know what you are saying, these aren't cheap brands! How can I do my bit? Well my little beauty fanatics. Diet Coke is your answer.

October '16 Empties

When I kinda had it in my head that I was going to start blogging again, I made a conscious effort to save my empties. I used to love writing these before and they are also one of my favourite posts to read. I am just to nosey for my own good. Lets get started...

Shadow Switch*

Hands up, who is lazy like me and literally detests cleaning their brushes? Nice to know I am not the only one. One of the main reasons I don't use eye shadow a lot is down to having to clean my brushes more. Doing just liner doesn't require cleaning anything. So when Beauty Essentials contacted me asking if I wanted to try out a "dry brush cleaner", well I was all over it. But was it going to be too good to be true?

"Water" October Birchbox

 

Wow I have missed telling you about my little monthly treat, Birchbox! And what a box to get it all kick started again. When I saw that there was going to be four different boxes that you could received I hoped that I would get Water, and blow me down. Look what I went and got! The reason I got water is because my star sign is Cancer. Lucky meeee! Firstly, I adore the new draw like boxes you get, so much better than the boxes from before. Also really handy for storing items in after you have emptied the contents from Birchbox out. I am loving the starry night sky design on this months box, AND IT GLOWS IN THE DARK!! 100% going to be keeping this box.

Halloween & Christmas Lush Haul

 

Am I the only one who walks into Lush and is determined to only pick up a couple of bath bombs, because you know full well you have 7 other Lush items at home that need using up. But you end up spending nearly £40 on 10 items. Oh it's not just me, thank god for that. I picked up these items after a visit to Meadowhall recently.

September 2016 Favourites

Back to monthly favourites, which are one of my favourite posts to write and read. I just like to be nosey and see what folk are loving. This month only 3 products have really stood out to me;

The Blog Made Me Buy It

I am a self confessed beauty magpie, pretty patterns, colours and packaging just sucks me in. I always find it so hard to walk away from a product that is a packaged perfectly. In this post I am going to tell you about a few items that I own, which I find it almost impossible to use as they are just to darn pretty and also that I most likely brought them because of a hype around them... oops.

Keeping Blonde Hair Healthy

Now that I have gone back to being blonde, I need to keep my hair in a good healthy condition. To me personally there is nothing worse than someone with lovely blonde hair that is dull and damaged. To do this I I use the three following products;

Getting Started Again

I did as I promised, I am writing another post! I know, I know you're so proud of me. With me having a year out, I feel like a newbie again. I need to rebuild connections, gain peoples trust that I won't go away again and also learn how to be a blogger again. Admittedly I won't be able to be as full on as I was say this time two years ago straight away, but who knows I may get myself back up to posting every other day. In this post I am going to talk about the aims I am setting myself and how I am going to get myself back to being Sian Marie Beauty.

One Year Later; the bad and the oh so magical....

Hello, hi, bonjour? Is anyone there?! Feels a little strange writing this as I haven’t done this in over a year. First of all I want to say thank you to the people who maybe checked back on this little website to see if I did post anything. Sorry to disappoint you every time you clicked on, maybe this post will be a nice surprise?! But I wasn’t feeling it, I wasn’t feeling life in general. A lot happened in the last year break ups, make ups, holidays, nights out, strange memories, tinder and finding the most incredible person ever.

It has been a roller coaster of a year and that is putting it simply. From leaving my ex of whom I was with nearly 6 years, I moved back home. As you can imagine I was in no right head space to talk about a blusher or a monthly favourites. I needed to get myself sorted. I had a bit of a whirlwind romance over Christmas, but this led to heart break. Now thinking back onto this time, I am not sure if it was heart break from this person, due to how fast I went into this whirlwind, or if in fact I was finally grieving for my previous break up. Either way, I have no bitter feelings for either of them, I wish you both happy lives!

So after what just over 6 years of not really being on my own. I was suddenly 26 and single. And oh boy how the world had changed. I no longer knew how to flirt, how to engage with the opposite sex nor did I really want to for a couple of months. I had a good 6 weeks of just being Sian, now I can't stress enough how much this time is needed after any break up. I cried, I laughed with my best friend, Charli. She was my entire rock throughout the year. I would have been totally lost without her. We planned a holiday to Tenerife. I lost over a stone in weight. I finally started to feel myself again. I was going out with a couple of girls from work Paige and Nat, I owe a lot to them as they shown me a good time every Saturday. Sundays sucked, waking up and feeling like death was incoming. Then Tinder happened.....

If you are unaware of what Tinder is, WELL my little Internet buddy, its basically an on line meat market, you swipe left if you don't like them and then right if you do. If you like each other you can match and talk. Its fun, its a confident booster and oh boy I had so much fun on it. At first it is VERY scary and I will save my Tinder memories for a separate post as it deserves one all on its own. But to end this post on a high, let me tell you a little story.

I remember being sat in on a Friday night after my normal Saturday night prep of fake tanning all evening, doing the norm of drying and swiping through Tinder. I was starting to get a little bored of it, I was gonna give it a few more days before I gave up. When all of a sudden someone 8km was on my radar JonJon.... first thoughts were unusual name obviously a nickname but he was close by and oh my he was good looking. So naturally I swiped YES to him and thought id never match with him. Saturday morning came around, off to work I went, started my shift and a buzz on my phone. "New Tinder match". It was JonJon. I remember, like it was yesterday, I said to Barbara (my colleague) "I need to do this one right". He was the first to message me, I still can feel the butterflies. We spoke all day exchanging little messages, swapping social media links and getting each others number. He was sweet, funny and could handle whatever I threw at him. I knew I was starting to like what I knew so far.

Work came to an end, I rushed home to start getting ready. Us girls where having a night down Chesterfield for a change of scenery. Yes I was still talking to him over text. I couldn't not reply, it felt wrong to not reply. Sadly the night down Chesterfield wasn't the best night, so we all agreed to head home back to Mansfield to carry the night out. But I had other plans, I knew I needed to meet JonJon, so we agreed for him to pick me up when I got back to Mansfield. Now kids, this is something I would never have done sober. First day of talking to someone and already meeting them.... I don't advise it, but a lot of people knew who I was going to be with and I was to let them know I was going to be okay. So at around Midnight on 11th June, I got in his car and the rest is literally history. We clicked, we just got on like a house on fire. Since that day we have spent nearly every day together. We've been away to Whitby, planned more trips and I am simply having the time of my life. I have never felt like this, I know its such a cliche to say, but I know he is the one. We share the same views on life, hes made me feel whole again, Jon Rogerson, you are my world. Thank you.

So there you have it guys, a little round up of my life over the past year. Sorry this post is a little wordy, but I needed to get things off my chest I suppose. I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things and my beauty posts will be coming back into action slowly but surely. So look out for them. I'm excited for life again and I 100% want my blog to be a part of that again.

Until next time,