20% off Benefit with a Bob & Berts' hot drink purchase

Menarys is a complete beauty lover's dream right now. We called down for some coffee & cake in Bob & Bert's & spied a fantastic offer for one of my favourite beauty brands, Benefit.

When you buy a medium hot drink, you will get a voucher for 20% off a Benefit purchase over £20. The voucher lasts until 31st August, and the girls at the counter told me there are new lip kits with lip liner & lipsticks in one hitting stores around the 25th.

What to buy: any of the new wave of Benefit expert brow products that launched last month. The girls will help you select the right colour & products for splendid brows every time. I have the Goof Proof pencil, and it's my new go-to brow product.

There are also a selection of Benefit gifts. I love these and have a couple. They have small versions of the post popular products & allow you to try them without having to buy full size, and double up as travel makeup kits. I bought the 'Do the Hoola' kit in Gatwick Airport & highly recommend it. Bangor have it in stock.

The next fab offer to share with you is the Menarys' Clarins' gift event. It begins this Thursday and lasts two weeks. When you buy two Clarins products, one being skincare, you will receive a gorgeous beauty bag (not the one shown, the one on the leaflet) and you can choose four free mini-products to take home.

Choose from One Step Cleansing Water, HydraQuench Cream, Extra-firming Night Cream, Gentle Refiner, Beauty Flash Balm (I love it), Eau Dynamisante, Instant Smooth Perfecting Touch and finally Wonder Perfect Mascara.

Plus, if you buy an extra skin care product on top of that, there's an extra gift for you worth £22.

What to buy: Clarins Double Serum. It's won a tonne of awards and even out sold Boots' very popular serum last year.

Now this is a biggy. The YSL concession in Menarys' beauty hall has 30% off. That's 30% off EVERYTHING. If you are a YSL beauty addict you'd be worth your while popping down and buying your whole year's worth of products and get a third off it all. Stick it on the credit card (just don't blame me later, I'm such an enabler!)

What to buy: If you are new to YSL & want to try something, why not go for their super product, Touche Eclat? Hailed as a wonder product when it launched, it's spawned a dozen copycats & an entire range of its own. But it's the original under-eye brightener that still wows, and with 30% off its a great time to try it.

Finally the Lancôme counter has a similar offer with 25% off EVERYTHING.

What to buy: the new Grandiose Liner. A clever, new product with a swivel tip for easy eye lining. I reckon even I could do a cat eye flick with this magic wand and at 25% off.

This week I will be filling you in on some of the products we were clued up on at the House of Fraser 'Beauty Confidential' blogger event last Thursday.

The girl from Benefit told us the history of the brand, and schooled us on their newest product, Air Patrol.

It's a BB cream and eyelid primer all in one, with a SPF of 20. She told us it's major plus is that it will intensify any eye shadow you use over it. We got to try it on our hand during the chat & you can see the pigment is stronger where I used Air Patrol on the right.

On the night we were all given a gift card to buy something we usually wouldn't buy, but would like to try. I had already spent mine on a Laura Mercier finishing powder, but my friend Sera from The Style Guide Blog hadn't seen anything that took her fancy, and was rushing off to get home to Ballymoney, so she very kindly gave her card to me!

I do love Benefit products, the packaging always appealed to me and I even made several purchases of products even before I went makeup mad this year.

So I picked up Air Patrol as I was so impressed by the hand test with the eye shadows. Benefit are known for their innovative products and Air Patrol has a feature that's brand new 'makeup technology' I suppose you could call it.

The applicator is a super soft cushion calm tip that claims to be more gentle than your little finger. If you go to your local Benefit counter they'll have a large size of the material used for you to poke and test out. Another cool feature is that you can twist the base to dispense, but also to suck the product back in if too much comes out. Money saving makeup! But is it worth its £21.50 price tag?

So this morning before I put on any makeup, I tried doing my eye products with one lid bare and the other with Air Patrol as a primer.

It's easy to put on and 'dries' quickly. Excuse my novice eyeshadow application, but you get the idea. The pigment definitely has an edge on the eyelid on the right, which is the Air Patrol primed one.

So yes, Air Patrol works, so it's worth investing in if you want to up your eye makeup game. You can buy online where you can get two free samples of your choice with your order, or buy instore at your local Benefit counter, which always seem to have a sample or two for you when you make a purchase.

Air Patrol comes with super cute, pencil case type makeup bag at the moment as its their newest product. Because it was a blogging event they were incredibly generous with the samples!

They also have sweet little luggage tags, to tie in with the air travel theme of Air Patrol.

Puff Off! Is a product which works to minimise eye bags. It feels nice and soaks into the skin quickly without feeling greasy.

Instant Comeback is a luxurious serum, even the sample bottle is gorgeous. It's a clear serum and sinks in quickly and again without feeling greasy.

The It's Potent! eye cream is just that! I tried it last night when I took my makeup off and found it too greasy for my skin. I guess that's because it's not a product aimed at someone like me, it's best for those with dry skin.

The last sample I've tried so far is the Lollitint liquid blusher. I naturally have rosy cheeks, very rosy at times, so blusher is a product I've never dreamt of even buying. However, now that I wear more foundation, they are hidden somewhat, so I've been wondering should I use a blusher now.

So when Rachel at the Laura Mercier concession was doing my full makeup, I asked her if I WAS to use blusher, whereabouts on my cheeks do I put it? So now I know I tried out this blusher sample with a bit more confidence. I think a powder type blush would be more for me. I worry if putting a light liquid like Lollitint on top of foundation would ruin the finish? I think it's a great product for girls who can get away with no foundation. Just a little bit on each cheek would give you a healthy glow.

More from the House of Fraser Beauty Confidential during next week. The event sees lots of different beauty and makeup brands offer one of their top products with £10 off. The product Benefit and chosen for the promotion is another fairly new one, Rollerlash. Again it's a primer product which lengthens and curls the lash before you apply mascara. The reviews on the Benefit site are great and with the Beauty Confidential event, if you buy it in House of Fraser it's just £9.50