Back To School Beauty

Whether you are heading back to school, college, university or just enjoy quick, easy and natural makeup, then this guide is going to showcase some of the best beauty products around. I have included a mixture of products that also have a varied price point and hope you enjoy this post.

Starting with lashes, and Eylure Pre-Glued False Lashes* are some of the best around. They have recently changed the packaging, and have brought out some newer lash styles too, including natural ones, accents, which are not quite a full lash, and more glam lashes. The Eylure Pre-Glued Lashes come with a natural-looking black strip of adhesive on them, so all you have to do is take them out of the box and place them straight on to the lashes. The black adhesive strip also looks a little like an eyeliner so it gives you a nice, sealed finish and they are completely reusable. They retail for £6.50 each and are available at retailers such as Boots here.

Moving on to the skin, and the Kiehl's Glow Formula Skin Hydrator* is a stunning facial moisturiser that is infused with Pomegranate Extract and illuminating minerals to leave the skin looking and feeling super healthy and glowy. If you like a no-makeup look, then this will be a great base for your skin to keep it hydrated throughout the day and keep you looking fresh. At £30.00, it isn't perhaps a budget-friendly product, however a little goes a long way and you do get 50ml of moisturiser in the bottle, and of course Kiehl's products always include the best, natural and high-quality skincare ingredients around. You can find it online at Kiehl's here.

If you haven't managed to catch much of a tan this year, but still lust over that golden glow, I would recommend using the Norvell Venetian Gradual Tanner & CC Cream with Bronzer*. This is a multipurpose lotion that includes a unique blend of anti-orange bronzer pigments, which counteracts orange undertones for a natural-looking tan. I love gradual tanners, as they are much easier to build and create your perfect shade of tan, and this one gives instant illumination to the skin, and the CC cream benefits to help moisturise, brighten and firm the skin. Therefore, keeping it healthier and looking gorgeous. I have quite sensitive skin, so sometimes instant tanners can irritate it, but due to the moisturising properties of this tan, I have no problems with that here. You can find it online at Norvell here, where it retails for £24.99.

If natural makeup is your thing, then you are going to love the Burt's Bees Nourishing Mascara*. It is available in Black, but also in Brown if you want a softer eye look. The Mascara contains a cruelty-free, 100% natural origin formula, and is made with Jojoba Oil, and naturally moisturising Glycerin, which is gentle enough for the delicate eye area. The brush and formula strengthens and conditions the lashes, giving you long-lasting definition and softly nourished lashes. I wear contact lenses, and as this is ophthalmologist-tested, it is completely safe for me to use. The brush itself is the more plastic-style of brush rather than the natural bristle-style, which I often find better for separating and elongating the lashes. The Burt's Bees Nourishing Mascara retails for £12.99 and you can find it online at Amazon here.

My absolute go-to fail-safe foundation is the IT Cosmetics CC+ Full Coverage Cream*. I have gone through tubes and tubes of it, and love all three of the different finishes. The original version is the best all-rounder and is super quick and easy to apply, and I know it is only going to take me a couple of minutes to produce smooth, even, well-covered skin. You don't even need to use a primer with this foundation, and just one pump covers my entire face, so you get plenty of usage per tube. My favourite thing about this is that is contains SPF50 and so come rain, cloud or sunshine, your skin is going to be protected and well nourished due to its hydrating properties. I tend to go for the shade Fair in Winter and Light the rest of the year, and even though there isn't a tonne of shades, due to it being a CC cream, you don't need an exact match as it blends into your skin tone. It retails for £31.00 and you can find it online at IT Cosmetics here.

Whilst we are on one of my favourite brands, I wanted to also include the IT Cosmetics You Sculpted! Universal Contouring Palette*. This neat palette contains six bronze and highlight shades, along with a mirror and a guide to show you how to best contour the face. I think it is an excellent product to have in your beauty kit, as well as for travelling as you can get so much use from it. Inside, there is a Soft Contour, a Light Contour, a Medium Contour, a Deep Contour, a Matte Highlight and a Radiance Highlight, so it covers all bases, and you could even use the Deep Contour shade for the brows. I love the ease of this palette, because you are not having to dip in and out of bronzer compacts, highlighters, contour products and so on. This also retails for £31.00, which I find excellent value and you can find it online at IT Cosmetics here.

Possibly one of the most cult beauty products around, Dr PawPaw now have a range of shades available in the Dr PawPaw Multipurpose Soothing Balm*. For those not in the know, this Dr PawPaw balm is created from a blend of PawPaw Fruit, also known as Papaya, Aloe Vera and Olive Oil to create a vegan friendly, cruelty and gluten free hint of tint which is suitable for lips, cheeks and more. The shades I have here are Outrageous Orange and Hot Pink, and they truly are stunning. Whilst they tint the lips, they also keep them super nourished and in tip-top condition. Each tube gives you 25ml of product, which is much larger than the average lip balm or tint and at just £6.95 each, they are an absolute steal. You can find the Soothing Balms online at Dr PawPaw here.

If IT Cosmetics isn't within your price budget, then another stunning foundation which I love is the Burt's Bees Goodness Glows Liquid Foundation*. It is available in 12 shades, of which I have 1005 Porcelain here, which suits my fair skin beautifully. Goodness Glows is a 98.9% natural mineral makeup foundation and moisturises, evens and smooths the skin to leave a very pretty, natural-looking finish. It has a light to medium coverage, although I found it to be very buildable if you prefer something more fuller coverage. It has quite a dense texture to it, but evens out instantly and leaves my skin feeling so fresh and glowy, but also natural too. It retails for £12.16, which is an excellent price for such a natural product and you can find it on Amazon here.

For a budget-friendly mascara, I would recommend the Collection Supersize Fat Lash Mascara, which retails at just £2.99! This mascara is available in Black, Ultra Black and Brown Black, so you can choose the level of intensity to suit your skintone. This bargain beauty product has a natural bristle brush which catches each and every lash to coat them and create big, bold lashes. It isn't the best mascara in the world, don't get me wrong, but for the price, it does the job and is a nice, quick and easy product to use. You can find it at Superdrug here.

A cute little kit that contains four products in one is the Benecos It-Pieces Palette*. It is a fully refillable palette and contains a compact powder, a contour powder, and two eyeshadows, one of which doubles up as an eyebrow powder. I adore the rusty copper metallic eyeshadow which looks amazing with blue eyes and I love the fact that it is so neat and petite, yet manages to do so many things at once. Each pan is fully customiseable and refillable, and there are endless combinations you can create to make your own palette. You can buy two different ready-made palettes at £26.45 each or the individual pans range from £3.95 to £5.65. You can find them online at Pravera here.

A new brow love of mine is the Burt's Bees Brow Pencil*. It contains one of the softest formulas I have ever tried in a brow pencil before, and goes on to the skin like silk. It is only available in Blonde and Brown, and normally I wouldn't opt for a blonde shade, but it is such a beautiful warm shade that it suits my fair to light skin perfectly. Just like the Nourishing Mascara, the Brow Pencil is also ophthalmologist-tested and so is kind to the eye area and contains 99.9% natural ingredients. There is a spooly brush on the opposite end to the pencil, and it creates such naturally beautiful brows in a minute or two. The Burt's Bees Brow Pencil costs £9.99 and you can find it online at Amazon here.

When it comes to excellent value-for-money beauty products, you cannot go wrong with Revolution. They are always on the ball, and whilst I don't always agree with some of their clearly rip-offs of other products in the past, the products always work really well. One of my favourites is the Revolution Conceal & Define Full Coverage Concealer, and they have just released a hydrating formula so I am very much looking forward to giving that a whirl. It costs just £4.00 and is available in a whopping 50 shades! It is an excellent full-coverage concealer and I find that there is no caking or bunching up throughout the day. I also like to grab a darker shade and use it as a liquid contour. You can find it online at Revolution here.

I am forever raving about multi-use products as they just speed up our makeup routines so much more. The Burt's Bees All Aglow Lip & Cheek* (£12.99) product is a dual-function makeup stick that gives both your lips and cheeks a pretty pop of colour. there are six different shades available, of which I have here Peach Pond, a pretty coral peach shade, and Blush Bay, a universally-flattering rose pink tone. The All Aglow sticks contain 100% natural ingredients, and are full of Jojoba Seed Oil, Sunflower Seed Oil along with a hydrating core made of coconut oil to keep the skin nourished and hydrated. There is also a Burt's Bees All Aglow Highlighter Stick* (£10.81) for those who like a more natural, creamy and hydrating highlighter. There are three shades available, including the one I have here, Golden Shimmer and they add such a pretty glow to the skin. They too have that coconut oil core to keep the skin healthy throughout the day. You have to love makeup that works as skincare too, and once again, these Highlighter Sticks contain 100% natural ingredients. You can find Burt's Bees online here.

Some other false lashes which I enjoy wearing are the KISS Lash Couture Faux Mink Collection* (£11.99). Due to the faux mink effect, they are very pretty, natural looking lashes which are also super lightweight and comfortable to wear. They come in a wide range of styles, and each pack contains two pairs, so they are also great for travelling with as they don't take up as much room in your makeup bag as two pairs of lashes normally would. They are fully reusable and can be worn time and time again, if you take good care of them once you have removed them. The best lash glue to use with them is the KISS Lash Couture Strip Lash Adhesive* (£6.00) as it is super strong, yet also has a gentle formula suitable for use around the eyes. It has a teeny tiny applicator brush for precise application and the colour of the glue is black, so it merges in with your lashes beautifully. You can find KISS products online here.

For super-quick nails on the go, the imPRESS Press-On Manicure Nails* are perfect. I first ever discovered these in America years ago, and the amount of different colours and styles available are endless and so much fun. I adore these pretty pastel colours, which is in the style name Goal Digger, and they contain pearlescent pink, baby pink and pearlescent lilac. These nails have a neat, shorter look to them, and so are much better for school than longer nail extensions. They have a self adhesive pad on the back of each one and so all you have to do is remove that pad, and place firmly onto the nail for stunning nails in minutes! They retail for £7.99 and you can find them at Superdrug here.

If you prefer a more natural lip colour, then the Burt's Bees Tinted Lip Balms* are the way to go. There are six shades to choose from and each one adds a natural yet pretty tint of colour to the lips, all whilst keeping them fully hydrated and nourished due to the formula containing shea butter and botanical waxes. Each use provides up to eight hours of moisturisation and as you would expect with Burt's Bees, the Tinted Lip Balms contain 100% natural ingredients - all the goodness for your skin. They retail for £5.99 each and you can find them online here.

All the Loves,

Kathryn xxx

*Items marked with an asterix have been gifted to me, but all opinions are my own