Holiday Nails

I was intending to do a nail of the day post this week - however, my nails are currently in a terrible state, so they need a bit of work before showing them to the world.  I've let them grow too long, they've started to split and break - they basically need a good chop!

Anyway, I thought I'd show you three polishes I was wearing in rotation on my finger and toe nails on my holidays.  They are Daring Pink by Mavala, The Color to Watch by OPI and Sea Spray by China Glaze.

I love all these colours, and had some complements from random strangers on the Mavala and China Glaze ones whilst on my hols.  Although they're not the most traditional holiday colours, I really enjoyed wearing them.

Daring Pink is an almost irridescent, cool toned pink/purple colour with a hint of shimmer.  For me this worked best on my toes.  Two coats to opaque, quick drying and lasted almost a week without chipping = a happy Bristol Beauty Blog!

I picked up The Color to Watch from the Swiss Collection after spotting it whilst browing John Lewis - I loved the unusual lilac/purple colour.  Unfortunately, it's a sheer application, not the opaque that I was expecting.  However, I made it work on by nails by building up four or five layers and getting a true to bottle, opaque colour that I wanted.  This wasn't too difficult to achieve - I really like the application of this polish, and it dried incredibly quickly, so it didn't take any longer than two coats of a different polish would take to dry.

I bought Sea Spray on Ebay after searching for a dupe to Chanel's Riva.  Whilst I don't think this is a dupe, as there is very little of the hidden shimmer that I've seen in swatches of Riva, it is a very pretty, pastel baby blue colour.  And with a name like Sea Spray, it's perfect for a beach holiday!  This is the first China Glaze polish I've tried, and I have to say, I wasn't overly impressed with the application and drying time.  It needed two to three coats to get a good finish, but the polish tended to drag a bit and it took FOREVER to dry!  Saying that, once dried, it lasted a good long time on my toes and my fingers, despite lots of walking in sand etc, so it gets a thumbs up for me for staying power.

I wish I'd actually remembered to take NOTD photos of these polishes - I will wear these again over the next few weeks (once I've sorted out my nails) and take some snaps, as all these are lovely, summary colours and look great on!

What nail polishes are you loving at the moment?

Don't forget to enter my Mac Wonder Woman Giveaway!

Thanks for reading! xx

Holiday Beauty Favourites

I don't know about you, but I really like mini bottles and samples of products and I save them for overnight trips and holidays.  I also love the small sized bottles you can buy for holidays as well.  I was really organised this year and I had mini sizes of almost all my toilettries to take with me - almost unheard of for me.  I did have to take two bottles of mini shower gel, shampoo and conditioner as one of those small bottles was never going to last the week.  Nevertheless, the weight of my toiletries was not very heavy, which meant more room for makeup!

Here is a selection of my favourite holiday products:

Moroccan Oil has become a staple of my haircare routine and I originally bought this travel sized bottle.  Since them, I've bought a full-sized bottle, but kept the small bottle to use for travelling.  I bought a mini tube of Umberto Giannini Flirty Curls Scrunching Jelly after using some of my sister's at Christmas.  My holiday haircare routine involved wash, condition, Moroccan Oil and then the scrunching jelly - then leave to dry in the sun!  No heat or straighteners were involved at all, and I loved my no-hassle curls.

I've recently started using Batiste dry shampoo, so I picked up a mini-can of the Tropical fragranced shampoo for my hols.  Although this does have the slightly grey colour to it, I forgive it for its amazing smell.  Basically, it smells exactly like pina coladas - my holiday drink of choice.  I kept getting a whiff of my hair and deciding to have another drink!

I used No 7 Anti-Dark Spot Facial Sun Protection SPF 50+ everyday on top of my moisturiser.  I did break out in a couple of spots, however, it did stop my pale skin from burning and I didn't even get a smattering of freckles.  I don't really do tanning, especially on my face, so this was an advantage for me.

Clinique Take the Day Off eye makeup remover worked brilliantly at removing my eye makeup every night. I hadn't packed very much cotton wool, so was rationing it to one pad to remove both eyes!  However, it was possible to do this with this Clinique remover - it worked so much better than my usual makeup remover.  Although it's pricy, I got it as a gift with purchase at Bonus Time, and I would get it again!

For daily and evening moisturiser I used The Sanctuary's Brightening Facial Illuminating Moisture Lotion SPF15.  I got this with a spa kit I bought after Christmas.  Whilst it's too light for winter use in the UK, it was perfect for my skin in the hot Cuban temperatures.

Finally, my holiday perfume of choice was Hugo Boss Orange Sunset.  I got this for Christmas, and whilst I love the smell, it didn't appeal to me for a winter fragrance.  However, I was splashing it on every evening on holiday, and loved the summary fragrance, which is feminine without being too sweet for my nose.  I'll definitely be getting lots of use out of this in the summer!  I just need a mini size for my travels now!

So these were my beauty favourites for my holiday.  I also had some makeup favourites as well as nail polishes; I'll do another post on these separately.

Don't forget to enter my Mac Wonder Woman Giveaway!

Thanks for reading! xx

Duty Free Beauty Haul!

When I went on my hols, I flew out of Gatwick.  It's a bit of a pain to get to for me, although we were helped by my lovely parents who let us leave my car at their house in south London and gave us a lift.  However, it did mean that there were plenty of opportunities for splashing out on duty free goodies before flying.  We were slightly pushed for time in the duty free area, but I managed to fit in a bit of shopping and got a small haul of nice products.

Firstly I got a second bottle of Lancome Teint Miracle foundation - I've got some left of my first bottle, but it's a product I will repurchase again and again.  I love this stuff, and it's convinced me that it's well worth spending the extra on a decent foundation.  I paid £25 for this non-duty free (and before the Vat rise), but this cost about £21 duty free, so worth picking up.

Secondly, I wandered over to the Mac counter.  What a joy it was to browse a Mac counter which was completely empty of grabbing customers, with two available members of staff to attend to me!  They had all the main line stuff, as well as the Wonder Woman as well. I'd highly recommend visiting a duty free Mac counter.  I was interested in the concealers, and one of the SAs had the time to properly colour match me - something I've never been able to get at a normal Mac counter.  The SA also talked me through my underlying skin tone - more yellow than pink as I had always thought - applied it for me, and gave me some tips on concealer application - all in a relaxed and unpressurised environment.  I bought a Studio Finish Concealer in NW20 which cost about £11.  I'm not sure what the non-duty free price would be, but it seemed reasonable for Mac.  I had (for some reason) bought two concealer palettes with me on holiday already, but as you can see, I didn't need them, as I only used this one!

Finally, on the plane I bought a Clinique Exclusive box set of Moisture Surge products, exclusive to Virgin (I think).  This cost £35 and I think was a complete bargain!  I contains a gigantic 75ml tub of Moisture Surge, as well as a Moisture Surge spray (very handy for long haul flying - I tested it out) and an Moisture Surge Eye Gel.  I'm so pleased I've discovered Moisture Surge, and it has got me through the harsh conditions this winter.  Last autumn I bought a 50ml tub for £30, so paying £35 for 75ml, as well as the spray and gel was very good value.  My 50ml tub didn't quite last me through the winter, but I'm sure that the 75ml will do.  I also got a tube of it with Glamour magazine before I went on holiday, so I've got loads of the stuff now!

I also got some sunglasses in Next for £8 as I managed to completely break my normal sunnies somehow sitting in the car on the way to the airport.  They were in my handbag, so it was very lucky I noticed just in time (whilst going through security)!

Unfortunately there was very limited choice of beauty products to buy on the way home.  Due to the US embargo on businesses operating in Cuba, very few brands were available.  There were a couple of perfume brands I recognised, but none I liked and some Adidas gift sets, but nothing that caught my eye at all, despite having a few spare pesos to spend.  I just stocked up on lots of yummy rum instead - anyone for a Pina Colada, or perhaps you'd prefer a Mojito?

Have you picked up any duty free bargains on your hols?

Don't forget to enter my Mac Wonder Woman giveaway.

Thanks for reading! xx

CLOSED Mac Wonder Woman Giveaway - Lipstick and Lipglass

CLOSED

Hello all! Whilst I was on holiday, I've been amazed that the number of followers to my blog has increased to 187 followers!  Thanks to everyone who reads my blog and makes interesting comments - one of the nicest things about blogging is the interaction with lots of interesting and friendly people who share similar interests.  I tend to be a bit stop/start at Twitter, but I do love hearing from you all on my blog.

Anyway, I thought that I would have a little giveaway to say thank you to all the wonderful people in the blogging community.  Before I went on holiday I purchased some items from the Mac Wonder Woman collection for myself, and I also bought a couple of duplicate items with this giveaway in mind.  The items for the giveaway are:

Mac Wonder Woman Lipstick in Marquise d' (Lustre)
Mac Wonder Woman Lipglass in Wonder Woman

The packaging is just fantastic and is a work of art on its own.  I've included some photos and swatches of the items that I've taken from my own lipstick and lipglass - the ones from the giveaway have not been opened.

Marquise d' is a sort of "my lips but better" colour that should suit every skin tone and would work for everyday use.  Wonder Woman is a richly pigmented, red lipglass that works well on its own.  You could try it over a bright red lipstick for extra va-va-voom!

So what do you have to do to enter?  Well, firstly, you MUST be a follower.  New followers are very welcome, but not if you've only set up an account to enter giveaways.  Then leave me a comment saying 'enter me'.  Please either make sure you leave your email address, or have it easy to find on your blog so that I can contact you if you win.

You can have a second entry by tweeting about my giveaway, making sure you mention @bristolbeauty in your tweet.

The giveaway closes at Midnight on Saturday 9th April 2011, afterwhich I will pick a winner at random using Random.org.


The giveaway is open to international followers as well, the more the merrier!

Thank you very much followers - good luck to all!  xxx

Normal Service To Be Resumed!

Hi everyone!  I'm back from my travels to the fantastic island of Cuba and reality and work beckons unfortunately.  Anyway, as promised, I have some ideas for new posts and will try to post slightly more regularly!  I also have a giveaway coming up soon, so will post about that shortly...stay tuned!

I'm very jetlagged at the moment, so here's a photo of the beautiful Caribbean paradise I've just left behind - it's about all I could manage!

Thanks for reading! xx

Time for some Sun and Sea

Hi ladies!  I know I've not been around much over the last week - I was full of good intentions, but have ended up working till 7 most nights, so blogging hasn't been my first priority!  Anyway, I'm off for some sun, sea, rest and relaxation in Cuba now, so I'm not going to be around for a few more weeks.  I'm very excited, and really looking forward to lying on a warm and sunny beach!

Anyway, I do have lots of ideas for new posts - I'm sure I'll formulate some more ideas whilst I'm relaxing on the beach as well.  Hopefully, normal blogging service will be resumed shortly when I return.

Thanks for reading! xx