Hum ho NOTD

My nails are naked right now, but this is what they were wearing until yesterday!

After the craziness of my last konad, I wanted something a little more subtle. To be honest, I was a little meh about this at first, but longer I wore it, the more it grew on me! It’s a bit of a mess, but that’s what happens when you do your nails at 11pm in bad lighting.

The base is e.l.f. Desert Sand nail polish, and I am loving this colour! It’s a rather elegant nude beige, and is a bargainous £1.50! The quality is pretty ok. It’s a little thick on application, but that’s nothing a little thinner won’t sort out, but it did only last about 4-5 days before huge chunks chipped off on the left hand. Although in all fairness my nails do get quite a bashing at work.

I used the konad m57 plate and a black polish to stamp one of the lace designs across the base of the nail, and I really like the contrast of the dark lace against the pale base colour. It’s quite simple, but I like it.

In other nail news, I’m seriously lemming the new Estee Lauder Surreal Violet nail polish. Hopefully I’ll get my grubby little mitts on this soon :)

Free MAC! Thanks Back 2 MAC :)

Of course all of that depotting means lots of B2M!

I’m really not a lipstick person, I feel much more comfortable with balms and glosses. I have quite pigmented lips, so I don’t feel too naked without any colour on them as long as they’re moisturised. Still, if there’s free make-up going, I’m there.

When I toddled off the my MAC counter with my 6 empties, I had visions of walking away with Pink Nouveau, or Creme Cup or some soft bubblegum pink colour, but after hearing that I wasn’t a big lipstick person the lovely make-up artist suggested I look at the Slimshine Lipsticks. There wasn’t a huge selection, but I picked out Gentle Simmer and I think this might be an excellent “trainer lipstick”.

I can’t find these on the MAC website so I assume these are discontinued and they’re just phasing them out at counters, which is a shame because this is a lovely product. It would also explain the pretty poor colour selection at my counter. It gives a pretty sheer glossy wash of colour, and almost feels like a solid gloss but not as thick. You don’t get a whole lot of product compared to the normal line of lipsticks, but the packaging is just so elegant. Plus, I think these could be an excellent segue into the grown up world of lipsticks for me!

Bare lips on the left, Gentle Simmer on the right. Clearly it doesn’t give a whole lot of colour, unless maybe you have paler lips than I do, but it does add a lovely moisturising gloss. Personally, I like that it’s not intensely pigmented as it means that I can reapply this without the need for a a mirror.

This is not my first lipstick, but it is definitely the first I’ve ever brought home that I actually like using. I’m so sad that they’re discontinued!  I think I might have to pop back and pick up a few more of them before they disappear forever.

Zebra NOTD

The Essie came off at the weekend, and on went this bit of tacktastic fun :)

Holographic rainbow zebra print using my new m57 plate. Inspired by a video I saw on youtube. So so tacky, but I love it! I thought The Boy would hate it, but apparently it’s too ridiculous to hate :)

The index finger is the only one that seems to have printed properly. The fourth finger is totally botched! I somehow totally misjudged where my nail actually was and managed to miss both ends of the nail with the stamp. I tried to restamp the tip with a little extra stripe, but my total lack of spacial awareness shone through loud and proud and I stamped it in the wrong direction! Doh. Lesson for next time: don’t be lazy and try to restamp, fill in the missing stripes with more polish and a nail art brush. The holographic polish also washed out the definition between the pink and the purple stripes, but ah well.
The cast of characters:
- Barry M in Turquoise
- 17 Lasting Fix in Parma Violet
- Barry M in Strawberry Ice-cream
- 17 Lasting Fix in Orange Soda
- OPI Standing Room only
All topped off with the zebra print from the Konad m57 plate in the black polish.
It’s quite ridiculous how happy these nails are making me! Over the top colourful 80s tack! Definitely to be repeated. They remind me of My Little Pony and Jem and the Holograms :)

NOTD: Essie Van D’Go

I convinced myself I didn’t need Van D’Go when I first saw it, but after seeing it on Lollipop26 I caved! I refuse to pay the ridiculous UK retail price for these, so I headed over to enchantedbeautyspot on ebay for a little 3 polish haul (I picked up Chinchilly and Mink Muffs too!).

The pros?

• I absolutely love this colour. It’s a bit brighter than I expected, but it’s a gorgeous milky peachy pink. Perfect for spring/summer.

The cons…

• This stuff is awful to apply. It took me three coats to get a decent even finish. I was trying to go for 2 thin coats, but the first coat went on insanely streaky, the second and third coats covered the streaks but then ended up looking a little bumpy and uneven. Thankfully the Seche evened it out a bit, but the whole process was hard work!
  
• As much as I love this colour I’m not entirely sure that it suits my NC15 skin tone. It’s definitely a colour that would look fantastic with a tan.

NOTD: Eyeko Tea Rose

Confession time – this isn’t what I’m wearing on my nails at the moment! That honour goes to Essie’s Van D’Go which arrived in the post yesterday and promptly wound up on my nails immediately :) But I’ll blog about that tomorrow!

This is the Eyeko Tea Rose polish ('”for Country nails”!) which I was sporting last week (I’m a little behind :)).

I can’t quite decide about this colour. It is pretty, kind of a dusky blue based pink, but there was just something about it I wasn’t quite sure about. To be honest, I think the main reason I bought it was because I like the name! The formulation of this wasn’t the best, it’s a bit too thick but that can be solved with a bit of thinner I suppose. On the plus side it’s very opaque and one coat would do the job. There’s a bit of tip wear in the photo, which was only taken after one day of wear, but it had taken a bit of a bashing at work!

All in all, decidedly “meh”!

There is a new Eyeko nail collection due out sometime this summer which I’m looking forward to. I’m loving the look of the Rain polish and I’m glad to see Pastel making a comeback!

China Glaze haul

I’ve been very bad and done 3 nail varnish hauls from eBay in the past couple of weeks… 2 are still in transit, but one has arrived so here’s a super quick show and tell.

China Glaze Thunderbird and Flying Dragon and Essie matte about you.

I’ve been wanting a matte top coat ever since I saw this post by Laquerized so off I toddled to get my mitts on one. I love the subtlety of the gloss against the matte for a bit of sneaky nail art :)

matte about you is a strange off white colour in the bottle.

 

Of course I had to get it on straight away, so I whacked it on top of the Barry M Nail Paint in Mushroom that I’ve been sporting as a one coat swatch on my thumbnail for the past few days.

Apologies, it’s rather messy, but I was just having a bit of a play around :) I’ve been reading a lot of negative comments about Mushroom, but I actually really like it! I think it looks even better with the matte coat on top, the colour dulls down slightly to a nice creamy brownish taupe.

(Thunderbird on the left, Flying Dragon on the right)

Again, sorry for these sloppy swatches! They are sans base and top coat.

Thunderbird is a gorgeous metallic cherry red. It’s quite a classic timeless colour. To me, it’s the colour of how Dorothy’s ruby slippers would look without all the glitter :)

Flying Dragon is a really interesting colour though, a kind of deep berry purple with blue micro glitter shot through it. It dries matte, and the glitter isn’t that apparent on the nails. It went on quite well, but streaky, although perhaps that’s because I didn’t use a base coat. I had to use 3 or 4 coats to get an opaque finish, but on the plus side it dries very quickly.

So there’s my little snapshot into my latest haul! I’ll post proper NOTD pics at some point :)

Ins and Outs 1

I love reading these kind of posts on other blogs, so I’m jumping on the bandwagon! They do say imitation is the best form of flattery :P

INS

• Passing my exams - yay! Done with uni, although I always say that, and then go back for more :) A masters might be on the cards some time in the future…
  
• The sun - finally! It doesn’t seem to be as prevalent this week, but it’s still warm and that’s what counts in my book :)
  
• Palmers’ Cocoa Butter with SPF 15 – the regular Palmers’ Cocoa butter has been my daily staple for years and I’ve been wanting to try the SPF version for a while now. Whilst I’m vigilant with the facial sunscreen (daily SPF 50 on my face, thank you!) I’m somewhat lax about body sunscreen in general daily use. I have a separate SPF for my body but I regularly forget to use it, and when I do remember it either leaves the dreaded hideous white cast on my skin or is gross and oily. Until I find the perfect sunscreen this stuff is a must!
  
• Lush’s Lemony Flutter cuticle cream - I’ve bypassed this many times in Lush, and I don’t know why because this stuff is amazing! Gorgeous buttery texture, not greasy, sinks in easily, lovely zingy scent and nice moisturised cuticles! What’s not to love :) review to come…
  
• Getting packages in the post - Essie Matte About You and couple of China Glaze polishes arrived today – will  blog about them tomorrow!
  
• Exercise – having whinged endlessly about how I need to shift quite a few pounds to The Boy I’m finally getting off my arse and doing something about it! I’ve been doing the Davina DVD’s and the Windsor Pilates circle workout every day this week so far and although there’s been no weight droppage yet, I’m definitely feeling more energised!
  

OUTS

• Waiting for international delivery to arrive – I’ve ordered an m57 Konad plate and yet more nail polishes from the US via ebay and I’m being very impatient waiting for them to arrive.
  
• Not being a student any more – I’m going to miss that student discount!
  
• Job hunting – need I say more?!