Gem and Jo's Primer Picks

If you haven't tried a makeup primer stop what you are doing and get to your local drugstore. While primers have been around for donkeys years at this stage, hardly any of the high street makeup companies provided them. If you wanted long-lasting makeup, one of the only options was to fork out a few bob for a primer from the likes of Elizabeth Arden or YSL. Well those days a long gone, it seems like every drugstore brand has brought out numerous different primers, suited to a huge range of skin types.

Whether you're as shiny as an oil slick like us or you have dry patches, you are bound to find a primer to suit you. And best of all, you could probably find it in your local Boots store for an extremely reasonable price!

Rimmel's Fix and Perfect Pro: €8.99

                         

This primer is a god send, it has a great price (is always on sale), actually does what it claims and helps your makeup stay on all day long. There are 5 things Rimmel claim this primer does: Smoothes, Restores, Brightens, Mattifies and Perfects. And let us tell you, it actually does all of these things, it instantly mattifies and smoothes your complexion and it creates a lovely glow that works alone or under makeup. We certainly love this one!

We pop this on under our makeup to help it last all day long! This is perfect for our fellow oily peoples!

Makeup Revolution's Ultra Face Base Primer: £5.00

                          

If you haven't heard of Makeup Revolution, get out. We mean it. This is one of our favourite brands at the moment and we cannot stop raving about everything we buy from them! Including this primer. This is a more silicon like primer, which is great for blurring imperfections and smoothing over any lumps and bumps. However, if you are looking for a heavy duty primer, to hide everything and leave your makeup flawless all day, this is probably not the one for you. It's not as long lasting as the Rimmel Fix and Perfect but nonetheless is a gorgeous product that we enjoy using!

Again, we like to pop this on under our makeup to create a smooth, perfected base. 

Find it here. 

Rimmel's Fix and Protect: €8.99

                          

This is a new one for us, and to confess we're not totally sold on it, but for the purpose of this post (which is to give you guys a nice broad range of products) we shall include it. Rimmel just released this into their primer range and it's a welcome addition! Despite our love for the first primer mentioned in this post, the one thing it is lacking is an SPF. This primer fills in that gap. The Fix and Protect primer is basically a product designed to protect your face from everyday harm. Which includes pollution and harmful UV rays, and as a ginger Gem figured this would be perfect for her. As we all know she burns like that pizza your forgot about when your friend called with boy drama. 

So with it's SPF 25 and an anti-pollution protection we were reeled in, hook, line and sinker. 

However, the texture and staying power of this primer isn't the best. It goes on like a suncream, which wouldn't be too bad if it didn't have that suncream smell. It makes us think it's summer when it's not, sad times...

We've worn this one a couple of times under our makeup, but for extra staying power we added the Fix and Perfect primer to our T-zone.   

So there you have it, a nice range of primers for affordable prices. 

Let us know if you've tried any of these or if you have some primer recommendations! 

Thanks for reading!

Until next time,

Gem and Jo Are Back

Well Hello there Stranger! 

So after a long and well deserved break from the blogging world we are back and ready to jump right in!

For a while there we were pretty swamped with work. We're trying to figure out how we fit into the post-college world and it proved difficult for a while. There are a lot of responsibilities and expectations that no one told us about. 

In the last 6 months or so, we've graduated, gotten full time jobs and have started Masters Degrees, along with trying our best to have some fun in what little spare time we have. And so blogging took a back seat, which is sad because we really love it! Hence the reason we're back!

So to ease us back into this bright, friendly world, we've filmed some new youtube videos. You can check 'em out here. Despite what you might think, our youtube videos are less work than a blog post. Taking the pictures, editing them and then trying to think of something witty and unique to say can be a little draining. Plus we all know that sometimes when you try too hard at something it can end up being horrendously difficult to finish it. But don't you worry your pretty little heads, we will have plenty of blog posts up soon enough!

For now, enjoy these pictures of us graduating with our Undergraduate Degrees!

This is our friend Patrick, and yes, we did pose like we were in Hogwarts. Wands and everything.

Until next time. 

Gem and Jo Talk: Back To School

We don't know about you, but we always loved this time of year. The excitement of seeing school friends, the gathering of countless, often useless, stationary items and of course (being the nerds we are) the thought of finally going back to learning new things.

But sometimes the thought of going to school or college can scare people. It can be a lot of pressure. Sometimes there can be pressure to look better than last year, or that you had the most amazing summer in an expensive resort somewhere exotic. In reality, those things, although hard to ignore, are not the most important things. Going to school or college is about learning, setting yourself up for life, making friends and having fun.

 With that said, here's some top tips for making sure you achieve all you can and have fun doing it! 

1. Try to surround yourself with people who encourage you to be your best, sometimes you can get stuck with a crowd who like to mess about and not do their work. If you are sticking with those friend, try your best to do your work. School and college are important and can define your life. 

2. Knuckle down from the get-go. If you're in an important year, like those gearing up for the leaving cert here in Ireland, make sure to realise that the start of the year is just as important as the end. A good start can really help to up grades and provide a foundation for future study! 

3. That said, don't spend all your time focused on school or college, everyone needs a break. Try to have at least one day work free: no homework, no study and no thoughts of school. Try going out with friends, taking a family trip to the cinema or even going for a nice long walk. 

4. Speaking of walks, exercise is really important when you're studying or just generally in a classroom all day. We're not telling you to go get a gym membership and become an Olympic weightlifter, but a walk outside in the fresh air can really do wonders for the brain! 

We hope these tips help you to be your best and that you have a great start to a new school year! 

Good luck you guys...

If you have some Back To School tips be sure to leave them in the comments, in the wise words of Tesco, 'Every little helps!' 

Until next time,

Gem and Jo's Summer Haul

Who doesn't love a bit of shopping? We decided to show you guys some of our summer purchases in our latest video.

Be sure to keep an eye on our instagram @gemandjotaketheworld for up close pictures and loads of fun stuff. 

What have you purchased lately? We'd love to know. 

Until next time,

Gem and Jo Take on Hair Swag

Do not be fooled by the title of this post, we do not have actual hair swag, also we don't know whether that's a good or bad thing.

We do, however, have this item which Claire's Accessories decided to call Hair Swag. Yes, that is the truth. Someone tell Claire's to sort out their product names.

This is the hair swag. It looks like 3 fancy hair clips stuck together in a line. And that is exactly what it is. 

Claire's have a couple of different versions of the hair swag, but Gem picked this one up to use during her auntie's wedding a couple of weeks ago! It has really pretty little flowers and diamond bits too, which means all together its a very cute little hair piece!

Here's how we would style this in our hair:

For Jo, we just kinda stuck it into the side of her hair with the built in clasps and that was about it. Jo swept her hair over her shoulder and curled the ends for a really pretty, classy look. 

Gem used this at the back of her head, as you can see in the pictures. The front parts of her hair are slightly twisted back from her face and held in place by clips under the hair swag. 

For a little volume and what not, Gem backcombed the top of her hair before gathering the front bits and clipping them back! 

Have you ever tried one of these? How would you style it? 

Until next time,

Gem and Jo Review Makeup Revolution

Following up from our last Makeup Revolution post, which you can check out here, we decided to get some more of their fabulous products!

We picked up one of their very popular 32 Piece eyeshadow palettes and a gorgeous 8 shade cheek and bronzer palette, and boy are they pretty! It's killing Gem to even consider using them (she's a little strange and likes to keep makeup brand new...weirdo...)

Makeup Revolution Ultra Eyeshadow in Affirmation: €11.27 (£8.00)

The packaging of these products is so sleek and clean, and as a plus, it's really sturdy so travelling with these shouldn't be a problemo! 

There are a couple of the 32 piece palettes to choose from and as lovers of both shimmers and mattes we went with Affirmation. It has a collection of pinky-nude colours that will be perfect for just about any occasion and the shimmers will be excellent for when we need a little glam! 

Also, this palette comes with a completely matte black eyeshadow that is gonna work wonders as an eyeliner when we don't want the hassle of liquid liner. 

Honestly, how pretty are the shades in this palette?? It pretty much has a colour for every occasion and for that we salute you Makeup Revolution! 

Makeup Revolution Ultra Blush palette in Hot Spice: €8.41 (£6.00)

We kinda wish this palette said "Blush" on the actual palette's packaging, we think it's really cute! But alas, the packaging is kinda plain, a little boring but that is not to say the inside is not super exciting!! 

This cheek and bronzer palette is the epitome of pretty! The shades are a really summery peach tone and the highlighter is to die for! Plus there's a blush/highlighter combo shade for when you want the ultimate glowy-look! 

There are some shimmery shades, which we were a little iffy about at first but we will learn to love them because they are beautiful on the skin! Plus there's also matte shades that will compliment our super oily faces perfectly! 

This palette is the perfect palette for summer, and the darker shades will take you right into Autumn/Winter meaning it's a general all rounder. At £6.00 for 8 blushes you can't go wrong with this absolute beaut! 

We will definitely be looking up some more products from Makeup Revolution, they are playing a blinder right now and we are excited to see what they do in future! 

What do you think of Makeup Revolution? 

Until next time,

Gem and Jo's Travel Tips

Summer for us means travelling. Whether that is hitting the road or hitting the sky, summer is the time when like to get out there and see the world. So with that in mind we decided to share some of our travel tips.

1. If you're jetting off to somewhere that has a different climate to the one that you've come from, wear a convertible outfit. This is an outfit that can be altered slightly to suit loads of different weather. Our favourite is a cute dress that when worn with tights would suit our colder Irish weather, but when worn with sandals is perfect for hot sunny weather. Tights and sandals are super light and don't take up much room in your carry on bag.

2. If bringing checked luggage,don't pack too much into your carry on bag. You don't need seven books, four outfits and three pairs of shoes for a two hour flight. Bring what you need and any valuables, and leave it at that. Airports can get very busy and you don't want to be breaking your back lugging around a massive bag.

3. If you're stuck for space in your bag, buy toiletries in the place your're heading. You can pretty much buy shampoo, conditioner and shower gel anywhere. Unless you're super picky about your toiletries there is no need for these things to take up weight and room in your bag .

4. If you're heading somewhere sunny bring sensitive cleanser and moisturiser with you. The sun, sea water, and chlorine can wreak havoc on your skin and make even the most robust skin sensitive.

5. Check out if your hotel or apartment complex offers pool towel hire. A lot of places offer pool towel hire for a small deposit and this saves you the bother of bringing a huge beach towel.

6. If you're travelling by plane make sure to stay hydrated. That means drinking lots of water and bringing a nice moisturiser with you. The plane air can make you really dehydrated and you don't want to be arriving at your holiday destination looking and feeling like a raisin.

What are your travel tips? 

Until next time,