High Street Budget Beauty Haul

I've never been particularly good at keeping up with any kind of skincare routine for as long as I can remember and for the past few years I've relied on makeup remover wipes and a Soap and Glory body scrub to get my face through life (Oops!) After turning 25 earlier this year I decided to treat myself to a very tiny budget beauty shop to try and find something that works well for me that I can keep up with (I am a grown up now after all!) and also a few makeup products from a fairly new, award winning animal testing-free makeup line (well, just because really!)

My first port of call was the local 'Lush' store - I've been a huge fan of Lush for some time now but had only ever ventured into soaps and the occasional bath bomb maybe once or twice a year. I'd heard good things about their all natural skincare products which are free from animal testing and thought I better check things out for myself and see if the products would be suitable for my skin rather than opting for the usual facial scrubs I've found to be quite harsh in the past!

I was helped in store by the lovely Eve who demonstrated a few different products for me. I've recently stopped wearing makeup for work during the day and my skin regularly flits between being too dry or too oily as with my 'wash and go' attitude when it comes to skin I don't even tend to moisturise!

After a demonstration of a facial scrub 'Angles on Bare Skin', 'Tea Tree Toner Water' and the light as a feather 'Enzymion Moisturiser' I decided I wasn't quite ready to commit to a full skincare routine without trying it first so left with a small sample of each which would last me the week and give me good grounds to decide on if it worked for me - I'll post a review soon and let you know my findings!

I then headed to the Poundland just a couple of doors down from Lush to check out their fairly new own brand cosmetics line 'Makeup Gallery' which I'd heard good things about - yes, makeup from Poundland, hear me out!

I've always been a bit of a makeup fiend but never felt completely happy about animal-testing (although sometimes sacrificing these beliefs for the perfect addition to my makeup bag every now and then...) plus the fact I don't wear a full-face of makeup in the day anymore, if at all, it seemed silly to me to splurge on the top brands as I would often do in the past. 

I'd seen a few reviews of Poundland's 'Makeup Gallery' and with it's ridiculously good price and the fact that none of it is tested on animals (some pieces even being suitable for vegetarians and vegans too!) I had to check it out for myself! I always find that staple pieces in my makeup bag tend to run out at the same time so knowing I was running low on my essentials I decided to stock up on a liquid eyeliner, lip liner and two lipsticks (because well, they're only a pound!) Again, I'll post a review of the pieces I picked up and maybe even put together a look using items purely from the 'Makeup Gallery' collection soon!

Thanks for reading!