In a recent survey, a third of women questioned confessed to sleeping with their makeup on at least twice a week. Guilty as charged over here.. We all know we should but the lure of a cosy and comfy bed after a night out is way too strong!

Good cleansers can be super expensive but have you tried something a bit more natural?
We’ve done some digging and found 4 makeup removers that you can probably find in your kitchen right now!

Natural Oil Cleanser
Natural oils such as olive oil and coconut oil will cleanse your skin without over-drying it. They’re also great at removing basically all types of makeup, from the darkest mascara to the most pigmented lipstick.

Cucumber
Cucumbers have anti-inflammatory properties, so they will help to soothe irritated skin or acne-prone skin. Take one cucumber and blend it into a paste. Use it as a cleanser on your face. If you have tough makeup to remove, add a little bit of milk or olive oil to the mixture.  

Yoghurt
Using yogurt on your skin can help to moisturise it, and it’s perfect for relieving sunburn. Take a clean cotton round and dip it into some plain yogurt, rub it all over your face in a circular motion, and then rinse off with cool water.

In our opinion, January seems to be a bit like a month-long hangover. The lights and joy of Christmas are long gone, it’s dark in the mornings, dark when you get home too. Central heating is playing havoc with our blowdrys… Not to mention this miserable wet and windy weather.

So what can we do to cheer you up?
A YAY-January-is-over FLASH SALE!!

Visit our website now for a whopping £50 off our brilliant LA Sheer Contour Kit and £20 off our Perfect Brow Kit.

Just enter BROWSOS to get our Brow Kit for £15 and,

CONTOURSOS to get the Contour Kit for a delicious £25 INCLUDING 2 BRUSHES!

It’s the perfect remedy to the January blues!

But hurry, you only have until midnight on Sunday to stock up.

The perfect make up look isn’t far away with the help of the girls here at Ruby Cosmetics, but without practice and patience, things can go a little wrong. Here are the most common make up and contouring mistakes and how to fix them…

You’re not blending your bronzer
In this example, she’s on the right track with the placement of bronzer along her cheekbones, but what she hasn’t done is blend it properly, leaving her with a harsh bronze stripe right across her face. This can be fixed with a blending tool like a sponge or a large kabuki brush.

Too much blush
A couple of things here. When you’re applying blusher, smile. The proper placement is the apple of your cheek (the bit that juts out when you grin) and up toward your temple, but not too harsh! Keep application soft for a coy glow not an I’ve-just-been-to-my-first-spinning-class flush. Also, keep blush away from your nose, it can make you look like you have the sniffles!

Your bronzer is wayyyy to dark!
Bronzer should be a shade or two darker than your skin tone. Otherwise you could look like LiLo here… Our LA Sheer Contour Palette has 3 different shades of bronzer so that you can choose, build or blend to your heart’s content. But a cool trick is to apply it holding your brush vertically so that only the tips of the bristles touch your skin - and apply it just under your cheekbones to make them stand out perfectly. Oh and shimmer bronzers should only be used in little doses. A matte formula is much more natural.

Your highlighter/bronzer combo is NOT on fleek
Ok, so bronzer and highlighter is a match made in heaven, but we don't want anybody to *know* that we're using it to make our cheekbones look like they were sculpted by the Goddess of Beauty. Honey, you look like a tiger, and not in a good way. You need to blend. We can't stress this enough. Blend, blend, blend.

If you ask your mum, she might’ve had a go at contouring in the eighties to little effect, but makeup technology has fast-forwarded so much in the past decade that it’s so hard to keep up!
Our soft palette of gorgeous powder colours has been specially selected to suit a wide variety of skin tones and is the perfect way to create your next night-out look.

When you're embarking on your contour journey with Ruby, remember these important tips...

Your base is your best friend! Choose a foundation that matches your skin tone with the finish you need. This way, the contour shade for your shadows will be darker, and the highlighter will really accentuate your gorgeous features!
Stay subtle at first - people will definitely notice a difference. Sure, you can go more drastic in contrast, but for real life, it can look jarring if you're not an expert blender. So start subtle, it'll be enough to make a difference.

Think matte for exaggerating shadows and shimmer for highlighting. In other words, the areas you want to recede, you want to keep shimmer-free. Sparkle will only draw attention, which is why it's good for high points you want to make pop like your cheekbones.

If you have dark skin, concentrate on highlighting more than deepening the shadows of your face. Since a dark skin tone already plays up the shadowy areas, highlighting is the key to contouring for you.

When it's time to apply here's what to remember:

The general areas you want to darken are the line under your cheekbones (where your cheeks naturally indent), the area around your hairline, your jawline (to make your face look slimmer and more oval), and the sides or your nose up into the creases of your eyes. You can also bring the darker shade under your chin and down your neck if you want to hide a double chin.

The places to hit with a lighter shade: under the eyes, in the flat area in the centre of your forehead, the centre of your chin and the strip down the middle of your nose.

Blend, blend, blend. Our powder palette is so perfect for blending - just use a big brush to blur the lines of your contouring away to get an airbrushed effect.

For even more fab ideas and tips, check out or Facebook Page, for links to video tutorials, special offers and much more.

We're super excited at Ruby HQ as our fabulous new contour kit has arrived. 

Contouring is the latest craze in the beauty industry and we have worked hard to source a powder palette that will work for all skin tones.

Good contouring can make a wide face appear narrower and cheekbones appear more prominent. It can also help to define the jawline and lift the eyes. All this needs to be done with a light touch using the right product and shade, especially for a daytime look. 

Watch our for hints, tips and videos on how to create the perfect contoured look with the Ruby cosmetics contour palette.