Gem and Jo's February Favourites

Lads its the end of February already. We cannot believe how fast this year is passing us by! However with each passing month something magical happens... Favourites videos! Come on, don't lie you guys watch them as much as we do. No matter how much work we have to do, at the start of a new month we will sit for hours watching many many youtube videos of other blogger's favourites. It's an addiction.

Without further adieu here is our February Favourites video:

What have you been loving this past month? Have you tried any of our favourites? 

Until next time, 

Gem and Jo Review P.S. Love Argan Deep Conditioner

We are loving the fact that Primark are expanding their range of super affordable beauty products! And by expanding we mean expanding! In the last few months alone they have brought out new hair, makeup and cleansing products, just to name a few! Plus with the prices staying so low we knew we had to head to our local Penneys (that's what its called in Ireland, weird right?) and snap up a few of their products to test them for ourselves! On our last visit we picked up P.S. Love's Argan Deep Conditioner for just €1.50!

This stuff is a deep conditioning mask for your hair which means it's supposed to do more than our regular conditioner, and this mask is no different! We found it was easiest to use it while in the shower so we didn't have to have our heads over the edge of the bath for too long and end up passing out.. not good!
All we did was shampoo our hair first thing when we got in the shower then we massaged a good amount of the Deep Conditioner into our hair, paying attention to the ends before tying it up with a hair tie to keep it from getting washed out. Then we went about our usual shower business getting all squeaky clean.
If you only shave on certain days take this time to do it as the conditioner needs to be left in for 3-5 minutes.
After your clean and smell lovely thanks to the fifty different body washes you used, you can wash out the conditioner making sure you get it all out so your not left with icky sticky hair!

We like to blowdry our hair after using the conditioner because then everyone sees how pretty and shiny your hair looks and they all ooh and ahh. (Don't lie you love when that happens too!) This bottle lasted us about 3 uses but we recommend only using this conditioner every now and then because you won't see results if you use it all the time (good things come to those who wait!).

We give this product: 9/10! It's super cheap, easy to get ahold of and it does the job perfectly! In fact it could nearly be a ten! (but 10's are reserved for products that supply unicorns and/or puppies)

Have you tried any of Primark's P.S. Love range? What did you think?

Until next time, 

Gem and Jo's Water of the Week - Cucumber and Lemon

Week 3 ladies and gents! Get ready for one of the original fruit infused waters: Cucumber and Lemon! It's pretty simple what you're gonna need here but take a look below to see pretty pictures of it!

A lemon!

A cucumber

Slice the lemon and cucumber thinly and make sure they can fit into your water bottle with a little wiggle room so they can infuse! Chuck in some chunks of ice and off you go!

Here's why this combo is good for you:

• Lemons have strong antibacterial, antiviral and immune-boosting powers!
• Lemons can be used as a weight loss aid because they aid digestion
• Lemons can help to cleanse your liver!
• Eat a few slices of cucumber before sleeping and it'll help to relive your hangover! 
• Cucumber helps to lower blood sugar levels! 

What water will you be drinking this week? Did you enjoy last weeks? 

Until next time,

Gem and Jo's What's In Our Bags?

We haven't posted a video in ages and we thought it was about time to do another one, this time we are emptying the bottomless pits we call handbags! There is a lot of random stuff in the bottom of everyone's bags, are we right? Empty sweet wrappers, strange bag dust and sometimes jellies that are stuck to other things (Gem knows this all too well, pocket jellies are the worst!)

Anywho here is our What's In Our Bags? video:

What do you keep in your bag? Is it as messy as ours?

Until next time,

Gem and Jo's Water of the Week Cucumber and Strawberry

Welcome to week 2 of our weekly healthy water drinking, thing. We're not too sure what to call it but its happening! Last week all you lovely viewers seemed to really enjoy our Raspberry and Apple water and this week we are sure you will love some Cucumber and Strawberry! It's both refreshing and sweet, the perfect combo if you ask us. 

Here's what your gonna need:

Some strawberries! As many as you would like!

A cucumber! 

A jug with water and ice, you gots to keep that goodness cold!

Then all you need to do it chop the fruit and veg up into your preferred size (remember to make sure it can fit in your water bottle!). Give the mixture a stir and leave it to infuse for a few minutes before pouring yourself a large glass and relaxing! Or you can pour it into a bottle and leg it out the door like we do every morning, lateness is a disease people!

Here's why this combo is so good for you:

• Strawberries are a source of Vitamin C which boosts immunity
• Strawberries also have ellagic acid which when combined with vitamin C can help maintain collagen! That prevents wrinkles ladies! 
• Cucumber is a source of B vitamins which can give you an energy boost!
• Cucumber also replenishes lost vitamins and hydrates! 
• Putting a slice of cucumber on your tongue can help to relieve bad breath!

Plus eating strawberries is thought to whiten your teeth! So after you've finshed drinking, you can eat the fruit and veg and feel great! It's like a drink and lunch in one go!

Do you like fruit infused water? Will you try this one?

Until next time,

Gem and Jo's Valentine's Lips Picks

Ah Valentine's Day, the smell of roses, the cute romantic couples proposing to each other everywhere and then there's us. We will be celebrating the occasion with some frozen pizza and a tub of Ben and Jerry's Cookie Dough. Exciting, we know. However, if you have managed to bag yourself someone special, we are here to help with the toughest decision of the day: What lipstick should you wear?

In this particular situation you have a couple of things to consider:

• How much kissing will you be doing? Cheek or otherwise. 
• What's your outfit like, would a little lipstick push you towards hoochie mama? (You don't want that.. or maybe some do, no judgement!)
• Are you going to a meal? (P.s. don't pick ribs.)

If there will be kissing or eating a dark, hard to maintain lipstick is out of the question. There is nothing worse than passing by your reflection and realizing all that kissing has smudged your lip colour all over your face. The actual horror. However a light, subtle colour wouldn't be as noticeable or leave your date with red-face! If you want lips that are sure not to budge keep reading:

Lip Stains
This has to be the best way to go. You get the coloured lips you want and you won't leave said colour all over your dates face. That's gotta be a plus in our opinion! However keep in mind, stains may dry out your lips, so keep a little translucent lip balm with you to keep those puckers kissable.

Maybelline 10hr Stain Gloss

(adds a little shine when first applied but fades to a unmovable stain)

Primark P.S. Love lip Stain Pen. 

Lip Balm
You could always go the route of no lip colour and let your natural lip shade shine! Just bring along a little lip balm! You could bring scented, unscented, etc! Plus if it's scented your date will probably get a whiff and be more inclined to smooch! A lightly tinted lip balm is a safe enough area too, just try to steer clear of intensely pigmented balms though, the same principal applies: dates face = lipstick-ified *shudder*.

Here's some lip balms that would work perfectly:

Nivea Essential Care Lip Balm

Vaseline Aloe Vera Lip Therapy 

(Pretty sure everyone has a billion of these in their house!)

Nivea Fruity Shine lip balm in Peach. 

(a soft tint and this stuff smells amazing!)

Lipstick
If you're gonna go the route of lipstick (you are brave and we salute you!), here are some of our top Lipstick picks for this Valentine's Day:

Elizabeth Arden: Red Door Red 

Elizabeth Arden: Breathless

Natural Collection: Sweet Pea. 

Ladies, we do have one thing to ask of you. Please, please for the love of that's holy and sacred: don't wear lipgloss! Lads do not like it! To them you have the lips of a two year old: sticky and unappealing. We asked around and they confirm this, for some reason most boys don't understand the wonderous-ness of lipgloss. Weirdos. 

Don't forget to check out our DIY Lip Scrub to prepare your pout!

What are you planning this Valentines? What's your lip pick gonna be? 

Until next time,

Gem and Jo's Valentine's Polish Picks

To go along with our Valentine's eye shadow looks we decided to keep up the trend and show you guys our Valentine's Day polish picks. 

We would like to point out that we were approximately 163Km apart when we painted our nails, it was a very strange coincidence that we happened to do practically the same pattern! Weird best friend telepathy going on up in here!

Gem's Pick

You will never guess how much I paid for this polish! Never!! What's that? You wanna know how much I paid? Okay then, are you ready? Are you ready for this jelly?

Here it comes....

I paid 50c!!

And the best part? It's a matte polish!!!!! I love Primark!

I only applied one coat of the matte grey/purple shade because if you apply any more it tends to crack way more easily. One coat is plenty anyway as it gives a fully opaque look which is what we all strive for, am I right? 

The formula is a little thick and getting it to cover your entire nail without streaking is a bit of a challenge but hard work pays off! 

I added a matte top coat from H&M to seal the deal before I added a little purple heart on my accent nail to give the look some Valentines feels! If you look at this picture close enough you can tell my heart is god awful and I cannot paint freestyle for my life. Ah well, everyone loves a trier, right? (Is that the right saying? It doesn't sound right...oops!)

Jo's Pick

I'm gonna let you guys in on a little secret, but before I do please no judgement. I personally am not a big fan of pink. I know I know, I'm practically betraying Barbie herself here, but who says you need to be covered head to toe in pink to show a little Valentine's spirit?

So for my Valentine's day nails, I chose to be a little different (or so I thought until I saw Gemma's nails and realized that we  must actually share a brain!). I first painted a coat of Topshop's Easy Peasy on all but my middle finger. This polish is great, has fantastic staying power and brilliant shine. 

Next to jazz them up a little and add a wee bit of Valentine's flair, I painted my middle finger with this pretty purple pink colour from Primark, which I purchased for €2.00. I then used a piece of Sellotape to make a love heart stencil on my ring finger. Trés Valentines(y) if I do say so myself. This polish applies really smoothly and has a large brush for easy application. 

This look would be great for anyone who wants to get into the Valentine's Day spirit without dousing themselves in pink sparkles and and red love hearts!

What's your polish picks for this Valentine's Day?

Until next time, 

Gem and Jo's Valentine's Eyes.

This week is an important one for most girls, all the planning, stressing and preparation for one of the most romantic days of the year: Valentine's Day. Now as we are currently lonely, desperate single people, we decided to bestow our knowledge (albeit limited knowledge we may add) of the looks you can create without the need for a fantastic makeup artist. Today we're talking eye shadow, specifically Sleek I-Divine palettes.
If you haven't heard of Sleek, you need to Google it right now, like right now! Their palettes are amazing, incredible pigmentation and a great range of colours, plus they are only €9.99!! For 12 shades per palette!! We've picked out 2 palettes which we feel are the best suited for this occasion, one a flirty, cutesy look which is perfect for younger girls and the other a dramatic, sultry look for someone looking to seduce their man, woman, mineral or vegetable.

Oh So Special

The Oh So Special palette by Sleek is the perfect tool for creating a soft, girly and flirty look, which is perfect for Valentines. The shades you get can create a really pretty look which is guaranteed to reel that someone special in! 

The palette comes with some really cutesy shadows, some of which are their infamous shimmer shades! Plus you get some nice darker colours which can be used to create an intense, more sultry look. Personally Organza and Wrapped Up are some of my favourites and together they can be used for a quick 2 shadow look. 

For this Valentines, if your looking to be more flirty than sexy, the Oh So Special palette is perfect, using Bow as a base colour (it's such a nice neutral shade for most skin tones) you can carefully blend Wrapped Up into the crease, the last 2/3 of your eyelid and a little underneath the lower lash line. You need to be careful with the darker shades as they are super pigmented and can come out waayy too dark! A little goes a long way in this case. Once your sufficiently blended, pat Pamper onto the center and inner lid and cover over it with Organza for a little glitz! Use Bow again to highlight the inner corner and voila! A pretty, girly look that's perfect for fluttering your lashes! 

Top Tip: Add a set of flirty, but not over the top lashes to make this look really pop!

Vintage Romance

For a valentines night you can't really go wrong with the Vintage Romance palette from Sleek cosmetics. Even the name conjures up images of love hearts, strawberries and the awkward moment when you are trying to make small talk with your date as you guys are waiting for your meal (We've all been there).  

All of the shadows in this palette are super pigmented and blend really well. Plus they have really cute names which, lets face it, means more than we'd like to admit. I mean you can't not feel all romantic and gooey while sweeping Forever in Florence across your outer corner. 

For a sultry night time look sure to wow your date and emphasize your pretty peepers; sweep Meet in Madrid over the lid, blend Propose in Prague into the crease to warm up your look. Next place a small amount of Honeymoon in Hollywood into the outer two thirds of your crease and blend some of Bliss in Barcelona into the outer corner to darken up your look. Sweep on a subtle lip and you're good to go. 

What's your makeup plan for this weekend? Are you going flirty or sultry? 

Until next time,

Gem and Jo's Water of the Week - Raspberry and Apple.

It's February which means that by now most of us have totally failed or forgotten about our new years resolutions. But who says you need the start of a new year to make a healthy change? So what's on our agenda you may ask.... Water. You've probably heard hundreds of times that drinking water is the first step to a healthy lifestyle. It helps to improve your skin, maintain your muscles and fight fatigue. "But water is soo boring!!" we hear you say. Well we're here to show you how to spice up your water and add some extra vitamins!
Valentine's day is just around the corner and what says Valentine's Day more than PINK! Here's our water of the week, Apple and Raspberry Infused Water.

Here's what you need:

A Pink Lady Apple!

Some frozen Raspberries!

A jug, some water (duh!) and ice in a cute glass. 

All you need to do is chop your apple up into thin slices (avoid loosing a limb during the process) and chuck everything into the water! Simples! 

Let your water sit for a few minutes, to infuse all the goodness and you are good to go! Stick it in a cute little glass or in a bottle and bring it along with you during the day! 

How cute is our little love heart wooden spoon?

Here's why this combo of fruit and water is so good for you!

• Apples are a great source of immune boosting vitamin C
• Apples are a great source of antioxidants which help fight free radicals
• Raspberries = great for your brain health
• Raspberries also contain the the antioxidant zeaxanthin which helps with retina (eye) health. 
• The vitamin C in Raspberries and Apples help to keep your eyes healthy in general. 

So with such an extensive list of benefits to this tasty drink, why wouldn't you go out and get yourselves some raspberries and apples! And, buying a couple of raspberries and a couple of apples is a lot cheaper than shelling out for a new bottle of juice each day! Yay for benefits! 

Also did we mention it's cute and it's pink? Who doesn't love cute and pink? 

Have you ever tried fruit infused waters? What's your favourite flavours? 

Until next time,
 

Gem and Jo's First Impressions: Real Techniques Nic's Picks.

Aaaaannd we're back! Those university exams killed us, we are just empty shells of people after them. Exams = despicable torture. Perhaps some new makeup products will cheer us up. Of course it will!!
What new makeup did we get? Only some of the most notable makeup brushes on the market: Real Techniques! Plus, we managed to get our hands on the Limited Edition Nic's Picks brush set which means excellent brushes and they're silver and dual-fiber!! What more can a girl ask for? (maybe some of their new Bold Metals collection...hint hint.)

First off, the packaging. You guys we didn't even want to open them! It's sleek and cute and neat and just so pretty. Alas we had to open it at some stage and we were pleasantly surprised that the brushes are encased in a soft, protective foam material thing, almost memory foam-y. No risk of brush damage here!

Practically everyone knows that real techniques are one of the top ranges of brushes out there today, and the quality of these beauties does not disappoint. They are soo soft and thanks to their dual-fiber-ness they pick up the minimal amount of product which means no waste and no risk of over-doing it on the powder front. Despite being a 'professional' brush range, they really help ordinary folk such as ourselves to get the best look possible.
Take a look at each brush in the set below!

Duo-fiber Face Brush. 

This brush is for lightweight application and blending of face powder!

Cheek Brush - Exclusive cut. 

This brush evenly applies makeup across cheekbones for a more dramatic look.

 Angled Shadow Brush - Exclusive cut.

This is perfect for layering eye shadow in the crease of your eye

Base Shadow Brush

This brush applies a smooth and flawless foundation of colour to your eyelid. 

 Eyeliner Brush - Exclusive cut

This is a firm, angled brush which is optimal for applying product along the lash line!

(We're planning on using it for our eyebrows though!)

Do you have any Real Techniques brushes? What do you love/hate about them? 

Check out their website here

Buy Nic's Picks here

Shop the Bold Metals Collection here

Until next time,