Nail Varnish Collection Downsize…

I've noticed in recent months that my style is getting really minimal. My go-to outfit has been jeans boots and a grey t-shirt, my hair is left natural, and as long as I have lots of lashes and a bright lip I'm good to go out the door. So when I went to pick a nail varnish out of my collection recently, I was a bit overwhelmed with all my pinks, glitters, brights, nail effects etc etc etc. Don't get me wrong, I love pastels and brights and lots of colour on my nails, but I just felt I needed a real de-clutter. And by de-clutter, I mean throw all my glitter polishes in the bin. My life is too short to remove glitter nail varnish regularly. So, here's my collection post-clearout…

l-r Essie Grow Stronger base coat, Seche Vite top coat. 

Everyone needs a good base and top coat. I've been using both of these religiously for about 12 months, and I wouldn't use anything else. 

l-r Rimmel 60 Second Rita Ora collection in Pillow Talk, Lose You're Lingerie, Orgasm

These are my favourite new drugstore release by far. I adore all of the colours, plus it's in conjunction with Rita Ora, who I happen to have the biggest girl crush on. It's also worth noting that the middle shade above is a great dupe for Essie Fiji.

l-r Models Own Purple Grey, Rasberry Crush, Purple Passion, Purple Blue from the Beetle Juice collection. 

I used to have in excess of 40 Models Own polishes but I re-homed most of them with friends and threw away the ones that had gone gloopy and here's what I'm left with. The two pink colours I've kept specifically for toes especially with a tan in the summer. 

l-r Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in I Pink I Can, Midnight in NY, Mermaids Tail, All Fired Up

I love the formula and brush on these, they apply with one stroke down the nails and are almost opaque after one coat. I'd go as far as to say All Fired Up is probably my favourite nail colour. Ever. 

l-r Essie Mint Candy Apple, Fiji, Lilacism, Peach Daiquiri 

Ahhhh the classic Essie love on a blog. Who'da thought it?! I think Peach Daiquiri is quite a standard shade and wasn't too overwhelmed with it, but Lilacism is so beautiful and understated. 

l-r Sportgirl Aubergine, Collection (don't know the shade name, it's just black) Sportgirl neon pink, Gosh Lavender Love, Barry M Lychee 

These are my odds and ends that don't fit in any categories. A bit like Models Own, I threw away or re-homed most of my Barry M nail varnishes as I thought they chipped too easily but I do quite like the new Gelly formula so if you have any colour recommendations from this line I'd love to hear them!

Loves

xxx

Top five eyeliners...

Next instalment in my top five series is eyeliners! I'm not a huge eyeliner hoarder, I tend to have a few and just stick to the ones I like. 

l-r Barry M Wink eyeliner felt tip, GOSH Carbon Black liquid eyeliner pen, Mac Kohl pencil in Smoulder, Soap & Glory Smoulder Kohl, Maybelline gel eyeliner pot 

Barry M Wink eyeliner felt tip: This is actually on it's last legs, but it's a REALLY thick felt pen that is so easy for beginners wanting to create a winged liner look. It dries up quite quickly and the nib on mine has gone a bit strange so it doesn't have a long shelf life, but it's really black and SO easy to use. The staying power isn't the best, but for around £5 I wouldn't complain.

GOSH Carbon Black liquid eyeliner pen: This is SO black, stays put until you get some sort of heavy duty makeup remover near it, and is quite easy to use. The nib is fine so you can create all sorts of looks really easily, the only draw back with this is it's quite watery so you really need to wipe the nib before you get going.

Mac Kohl: This used to be the love of my life. I've had about five of these, and whilst it is amazing, it's no longer my favourite kohl eyeliner. It's quite black, fairly long lasting, and you can sharpen it to quite a nice point if you wanted to use it on the lash line. It is great for smudging, however it sometimes smudges beyond all control when you get a bit warm....not ideal for sweaty night clubs or hot atmospheres. 

Soap & Glory Smoulder Kohl: This is, in the place of Mac, the new love of my life. I've done a full review on it here if you want to take a closer look. It lasts ALL DAY, no lie. I use it on the water line, it doesn't smudge or slip, it's a really intense black, and it comes with a sharpener in the lid!! The only draw back is it's quite a soft, gel consistency so impossible to sharpen to a point, not ideal if you want to use it on the lash line. For £5, all I have to say on this is GO BUY IT :)

Maybelline gel eyeliner: I use the sigma eyeliner brush with this, brilliant for the waterline and on the lash line, and creates a gorgeous winged liner if you have a steady hand. Again, seriously long lasting, really black, easy to use with a bit of practice and lasts ages! This is always on offer in Boots or Superdrug so really worth a go!

What other eyeliners does everyone else love?

Loves

xxx

Oh My Gosh…

Popped into Superdrug yet again to day and it looks even better than last time. In case you don’t follow me on Twitter, my local Superdrug is having a re-furb and is looking fab, with new makeup counters and a brow threading bar. I think they’re doing this in quite a lot of the bigger stores and it is such an improvement!

Anyway the makeup stands are amazing now, and I was especially attracted to the GOSH stand and the 3 for 2 sign hanging up in it!

As you may or may not know, I don’t really have eyebrows. I do, but they’re really fair considering my hair colour, and sort of half the length of most peoples, so I would never ever leave the house without some brow maintenance, and I’ve really been experimenting with this just recently. I still have my dirty blonde rimmel pencil, but I’ve been finding some careful blending with me new elf shape and fill double ended pencil in a much darker shade than I would usually choose has been giving me a more defined and dramatic look. Whilst browsing GOSH I came across their new long lasting eyebrow pen which looks a bit like a felt tip pen, which I picked up in 004 Wheat. Again this is darker than what I’ve used in the past and I think it will take a fair bit of practice because mistakes are not easy to correct!

(sorry about this picture, it just would not be clear!!)

I also picked up their long lasting eye liner pen in 008 Carbon black which was a bit of a revelation for me as I’m a kohl girl through and through. I haven’t used it yet but it’s a nice fine tip which should go on quite neatly. What other liquid eye liners does everyone recommend? Or even gel liners that I am also yet to try?

Finally I picked up another one of their limited edition nail varnished since my amazing discovery with their Lavender shade last week. It literally DID NOT chip. For three whole days, I was left with perfect nails and I never found a nail varnish that has ever done that before due to my extremely brittle and pealing nails! I can't tell you what shade it's in because they stuck the security tag over it but I'll research for you.

It's a bit standard for be as I have loads of pink colours in my collection, but now I finally have one that doesn’t chip at the first opportunity!! I’ll probably save this for a bit though because as I’ve got my gel nails on I can wear any nail varnish without it chipping, which I am loving!! 

Curly Sue....?

First of all I'd like to say a huge huge thank you to all my lovely comments on my first YouTube video, and I got like 6 subscribers within about half an hour which was lovely!

So anyway I popped into my local Superdrug today and it was having a makeover which was very exciting!! There's all new makeup stands and it looks like the perfume area is having an overhaul, but it was still a bit of a mess. Can't wait to see the finished article. The mess didn't stop me spending money though....

Even looking at this picture is upsetting me. I've heard so many good things about curling wands, and there's so so SO many pictures on people's blogs of their hair when they've said they've used one to create their look. So I popped down to Superdrug and bought the Remington Pearl Wand (heard so many good things about this one!) and let me tell you it has stressed the HELL out of me :(

I cannot get it to work, my hair just looks frizzy and afro-like (much like my natural hair actually!) I even sat and watched youtube tutorials for an hour and I still can't manage it. And as for trying it on my hair extensions....well that was a disaster. I resemble Curly Sue from the 90's film actually.

So anyway there were actually a couple of more successful items from today's trip....

I literally stood in the hair dye isle for about 15 minutes, with plum in one hand and black cherry in the other. Then I put down plum and picked up a lighter red colour. Then I just gave up and stuck with Black Cherry which I've used for the past 6 months. The way I see it....if it ain't broke, don't fix it! I'll probably dye it on Saturday before the big night out on Sunday!

I've finally done it, and spent £12 on a hair brush. The Tangle Teaser is an absolute godsend, I used it on my towel dried hair after my shower, and on dry (and very knotted) extensions, and when usually I'd have a brush full of hair, I didn't when I used this. I think it needs a few more tries to see if it really was worth the money but so far, I think this is an absolute beaut brush, it might even make my extensions last a bit longer!

Again, another thing I'm pretty excited about....volumizing powder. I haven't tried it yet but I went for a cheaper one just in case I hated it. I'll do a quick review on this when I've used it.

I've been on the look out for a bronzer like this for ages and have been toying with the idea of the Fake Bake bronzing block, until I spotted this. It's a dupe for the Fake Bake bronzer, but for a smidgin of the price. I can't remember exactly but it was around the £5 mark. It's from the Famous collection by Sue Moxley and they had about 5 variations of it. This one is Shade One in Golden Rose. The colour is so shimmery and even though the bronze strips are quite dark, the pinks in it lighten it up and make it really easy to wear. 

I decided I need to collect some more eyshadows as I'm a bit boring on that front. I got the Beauty UK number 4 pallet, and I have to say I'm a bit scared. I mean...it's got green in it...!!! I only EVER use gold or brown, and the occasional pink, so this is breaking me in gently. 

I'm really trying to get away from black or dark purple nail colours which I usually wear, especially with summer coming. As soon as I saw this colour from the limited edition Gosh range I decided this was the way for me to go. It's 001 in Lavender and the first Gosh nail varnish I've ever bought so can't wait to try it out!!

Another Beauty UK treat, their lipstick in Candy. Love this colour, but I'll leave it there for now on this as I'm going to do a post about my lipstick collection soon. 

And lastly, I took advantage of the two for £4.99 offer on Collection 2000 and got another two of my absolute favourite lip glosses I've ever used. I'm not usually a lipgloss fan, I tend to just use a balm alongside a lipstick, or just a clear lipgloss over the top of a lipstick to make it less obvious. These are from their Lock 'n' Hold collection which claim to last for up to 6 hours. I don't know about that, but they taste incredible, and stay on for ages, even when I'm sipping my vodka lemonade and lime on a night out. These two are in (l) break dance and (r) rock steady. Break dance is actually really surprising for a lipgloss, the colour is a REALLY strong coral even without wearing it with lipstick. Big big recommendation for these.