Festive Christmas Nails and Swatches - Part 3

This is my third post in my Festive and Christmas Nails series.  I'm trying to find out which is the most festive nail polish in my collection and I'll wear it on Christmas day.  My previous posts are here and here.

I've gone for some classic reds and greens in my previous posts, but today I'm going for something a bit different, looking at glittery polishes and colours that remind me of ice, snow and wintery nights.

From left to right, they are My Private Jet by OPI, Deborah Lippmann's Across The Universe, Gosh Rainbow, Orly Shine and OPI Extravagance.

Thumb: Extravagance OPI; Fingers L-R: Orly Shine, Gosh Rainbow, Deborah Lippmann Across The Universe, OPI My Private Jet

OPI My Private Jet is my favourite OPI polish - it reminds me of a night sky, fully of sparky that is very multi-dimensional.  Similarly, Across The Universe is also like a night sky, but more full on and inky.  Rainbow looks awful applied like I have, without a dark base, but if you click my link to it over a darker colour, you will see what a beautiful, sparkly polish it is.  Shine is a sparkly silver colour - very Christmassy and wintery.  Finally, Extravagance was in a Glossy Box and I hadn't tried it until this swatch - I thought it would be a glitter-tastic plummy purple polish.  However, it was a smooth application, very similar to My Private Jet, looking like a purple tinged galaxy on my fingers - I love it.

OPI My Private Jet

L-R: Deborah Lippmann Across The Universe, Gosh Rainbow, Orly Shine

OPI Extravagance

I can't decide which of these is the most festive.  I'm tempted to plump for Orly Shine, but I'm not sure.  Which do you think is most suitable for Christmas?

Thanks for reading! xx

Nails Inc Gossip Girl Inspired NOTD - Chanel Black Pearl and GOSH Rainbow

I've seen quite a few posts over the last few days about the new Nails Inc Gossip Girl collection.  Basically, these are a nail colour with a sparkly, foiled over-glaze, sold at an eye-watering £20 for a set with the two polishes.  There are three colours to choose from, although I think they all look pretty similar to me!

I was reading Le Petit Jardin de Liloo's post on the new collection, where she mentioned that the over-glazes are very similar to Rainbow by GOSH (which is sadly now discontinued).  I do own Rainbow (I think I got one of the last bottles in the country), and I decided to use it to create my own Nails Inc Gossip Girl inspired/dupe nail look.

All the Gossip Girl colours are dark, in blue, black and deep maroon.  I don't own a pure black nail colour, but I do have Black Pearl by Chanel which is blackish/dark green/petrol, so I used this as a base colour.  I used two coats of Black Pearl and then put on a coat of Rainbow.

I'd not used Rainbow for ages and had forgotten how lovely it is - it has large flakes of foiled glitter in green, yellow and red depending on the light - you can see all the colours on the same nail.  It also dries smoothly (unlike some other foiled glitter polishes) and for some reason, I think it dries very quickly and speeds up all the undercoats drying as well.  It acts as a tough top coat, lasting for ages.

If you've got Rainbow, you can easily recreate the Gossip Girl Nails Inc polishes look using cheaper nail polishes - you definitely don't need to spend £20 to get this look!

Other than these sets, has anyone found a good dupe for Rainbow?  I'd be really interested to find out!

Thanks for reading! xx

Accessorize Baked Bronzer Duo - Laguna and GOSH Natural Touch Cream Blush in Peachy Rush

These are a couple of items I bought in Brighton last week, so I thought I'd review them and show you some swatches.

First off, are Accessorize allowed to call their bronzer "Laguna"?  Surely that's a blatant rip-off of Nars?  I've not tried the Nars one, so I can't compare the two, but I was looking for a baked bronzer, and this one appealed to me as the colours were cooler toned and less orange than most bronzers, so when I saw the name I thought I'd have it. It cost £6 from Superdrug.

There are two different colours in the pan, a darker and lighter one.  They are both pretty pigmented, so I've fallen foul of using too much bronzer a few times since I bought it.  I've found that just a quick swirl round the pan (mixing the two colours together) gives plenty of product to bronze my whole face.  I think I prefer the lighter colour on its own, as I'm slightly scared of over-doing it, but I do like both mixed together.  I'd steer clear of using the darker shade alone (but I am really pale).

L to R: Darker colour alone, blended, lighter colour alone

L to R: Darker colour alone, blended, lighter colour alone

I quite like this bronzer.  I don't think it'll become an all-time favourite, as it's not the easiest product to blend and work with, but I do like it and like the glow and contouring it gives to my face without too much shimmer.

I really like cream blushes, but I only have a couple of Mac ones, so I thought I'd try a less expensive one.  I really want an Illamasqua one in a similar colour to this blush, so I thought this would be a sort of dupe.

I really like the colour, but I'm less impressed with the product.  It's a bit too slippy and watery without much pigment.  It sort of disappears on my skin, so I have to load on several layers to get a good colour, and then I stray into danger territory of having too much blush!  Although it's slippy, it's not that blendable and it fades into my face during the day.

I'm pretty disappointed with this blush actually - I was expecting better  as it wasn't the cheapest cream blush on the market (costing £7.49 at Superdrug).  I think I'll steer clear of these blushes in the future, maybe trying Topshop Cream Blushes (if I can ever find a store selling them) or forking out for Mac and Illamasqua.

Here are the least horrific pictures of me modelling both items for your viewing pleasure - if you look closely, you will note my rubbish blending of the blush!

What's your favourite cream blush?  Mine is a very old blush and lip combo from The Body Shop I used to use about ten years ago - I wish they still made it!

Thanks for reading! xx

Just a little haul...

...or not!  Hi ladies, I’ve had a very busy week, staying away overnight at a roadside Travelodge yesterday, before going to Brighton and back today. Anyway, I had a spare half an hour in Brighton (one of my favourite cities) to pick up a bit of shopping and I managed to stock up on a lot of products.

Beauty addict's paradise... Mac, Bare Escentuals, Aveda, Kiehl's and Shu Uemura

If you’ve never been to Brighton, you will be in for a shopping treat.  I think it’s the best place for shopping in the country outside London, catering for all tastes, including high street, high end and designer, independent and quirky/hippy shops.  In particular, their beauty shops are fantastic. I used to live there when I was a student and I remember a friend coming to stay with me and us spending 3 whole days covering all the shops!  My best friend still lives there, and we always hit the shops when I’m staying with her.

I went to L’Occitane and finally got some Almond Shower Oil which I’ve been meaning to get for ages.  I then popped into Mac to get some concealer and bumped into a former colleague of mine who works there as a MUA – I’ve not seen her for over a decade, so we caught up whilst I also decided to buy Satin Taupe.  Then I went to Bare Escentuals to get some more Mineral Veil.  In Oasis I got a couple of pairs of earrings and Butter London polish in Marrow.  Finally, I went to Superdrug to stock up on bits and bobs.  Some Garnier BB Cream, an Accesorize bronzer, and GOSH cream blush, as well as other stuff.  Phew, that was a lot of shopping in half an hour!

Believe it or not, I’ve not spend much money on beauty products recently, and other than nail polish, I don’t think I’ve bought any makeup all summer!  

My Nail Polish Collection - The Blues

As promised - here's a blog post!  Today I've been sorting out my nail polish collection and tidying it into a new box.  Before I started blogging I rarely used to wear colour on my nails, but now I wear lots of outlandish colours and I think that nail polish is one of my beauty 'things'.  I've rushed out to buy the latest Chanel must-have and gone to considerable lengths to get my hands on certain colours.  Gone are the days of having a french manicure and a few reds, pinks, lavenders and a single brozey/gold polish which all fitted neatly into a small makeup bag.  Over the past 8 months my collection of polishes has expanded rapidly and I've had to change my storage several different time!

I know that I still don't have a huge collection - I have around 60 polishes, and I must admit that there are some that I've never worn, and some polishes that cost a lot of money and I've only worn once!!!  There are also a lot of brands I've never tried - China Glaze, Barielle, Orly and Leighton Denny are all on my wish list of brands to try. 

Rather than bombard you with a huge post full of polishes, I thought I'd break them down into colour groups.  So first off - the blues:

Left to right are Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe, Marvala Smoky Blue, Nails Inc Diet Coke Collection Denim, GOSH Gypsy Blue and Rimmel Sky High.

I've done NOTDs with the Lippman and Mavala polishes, but none of the others, so let me know if you're interested in seeing them.  I've worn all of them except the Nails Inc polish, and I like the colour of all the polishes.  I've bought all of these polishes over the last year - if you'd told me I'd have 5 blue polishes a year ago I would've laughed!  I bought the Rimmel one first, last spring, and I thought it was quite a bold and daring colour at the time.  I restricted its use just to my toes!  Now I'd think nothing of wearing the Mavala polish on my fingers to work... oh how things have changed.

By the way - I have the blue Mac Wonder Woman polish on order as well - I can't wait!

I have a few more of these colour themed posts to come - let me know if you're interested in seeing any NOTDs of any of the colours.

Thanks for reading!  xx

NOTD - Children In Need 'Spotty' Manicure

I know that this is a bit late, but I wanted to show you my Children In Need manicure, that I wore yesterday.  We had a dress down day at work, where we had to wear something spotty and give money to Children In Need.  As I don't own anything with spots apart from one pair of socks, I decided to give myself a spotty manicure.

I started by using a French manicure tip colour as a base.  I'm not sure of the brand, just one I'd had knocking around for a while.  It needed two coats to get an opaque base, and it was a terrible, gloopy polish.  Nevermind, I was going to cover up my mistakes!

I then used Nails Inc polish in St Johns Wood and GOSH Gypsy Blue to dot my nails.  This was a little bit tricky, but I quite liked the effect.  It took a while to dry as some of the dots were quite thick.  I alternated the colours on each nail.  I didn't use any fancy tools, just the brush for dotting, hence the dots varied in size and thickness.

I had quite a lot of comments on my nails, including from random people in shops, as well as friends.  People were asking me where I had them done, which was quite a compliment!

This was a fun and relatively easy thing to do to my nails, and it was nice to do something a bit different, which had a purpose, for a good cause. 

Did you do anything special for Children In Need?

Thanks for reading!  xx

Haul!!! And have busted by Beauty Diet!

Hello all!  Confession time!  I've been naughty and have spent all of the £100 budget on random make-up I set myself - it was supposed to last until the end of November!  So unless I'm VERY good until then, I've failed the challenge I set myself - about 3 weeks ago!  I might have a bit of a problem...  I've also bought a few other bits and pieces as well.

First of all today I went shoe shopping!  Well a girl can never have enough shoes can she?  I'm planning to wear one pair of these for a Burlesque/Circus night I'm going to in October, so I really needed them!  I haven't decided which pair to wear yet.

These were on sale from Nine West - aren't they gorgeous?

These were on offer from Miss KG - I love them!

So, that's about £100 lighter on two pairs of shoes that caught my eye in Debenhams.  Hmmmm.

Next, I bought the High Street 'It' bag of the season, this fabulous satchel from River Island.  I can see myself using it every day, and it's also a practical style, so I didn't mind shelling out £34.99 too much!

I also spotted this great scarf with skeleton faces on it in River Island - at about £15, I thought it was lovely and quite Alexander McQueen-like, so I picked it up.

It has heart beads sewn onto the ends!

Moving onto makeup, I stopped by the MAC counter at Debenhams and bought this Superslick Liquid Eyeliner in 'Desires and Devices' from the Fabulous Felines Collection.  I was tempted by this, or by 'Treat me nice' which is a slightly more teal type green, but I went for this one in the end.

I also ventured into Superdrug to look at the GOSH range of nail polishes, as I'd been hearing such good things about it!  I wanted to buy Rainbow, and got the only bottle they had there.  I also bought Gypsy Blue, as it looked so pretty.

Rainbow (L), Gypsy Blue (R)

I also went shopping last weekend (I know, I know I'm so bad) and got the YSL Manicure Couture Duo in Belle De Nuit that I've been coveting for ages.  I only bought it as I was waiting to get served at the No 7 counter, and my attention wandered to the YSL counter... dangerous!

Is this a typo on the box?  ManUcure Couture?

The photo doesn't do the colours justice.

Finally, I did get served at No 7, and bought the limited edition Smoky Eye Liner.  So far, I love this product, it's so easy to apply.  The only draw-back is a slight transferance to my upper lids, but nothing I can't live with! I can see it being a firm favourite all through the autumn and winter.  Let's hope they make it permanent and introduce more colours!

So that's it for my confessional - make-up budget all spent!  I've also got a lot of products from Revlon's autumn collection, but I'll post these separately.  It's not all bad though - I'm doing well with the non-makeup related products in my Beauty Diet.

Thanks for reading!  xx